The Wronged One
by SGA-SAF
Summary: An apparent silly mistake lands Sheppard s team in trouble and John must prove his loyalty to one of his team members, when their kidnappers discover her unique link to the Wraith. Shep whump, team fic/whump.
1. Chapter 1

**The Wronged One –**

by SGA-SAF

**Disclaimer**: As much I'd love them to, these guys do not belong to me, I'm just borrowing them for some fun.

**Genre:** Shep h/c / team fic/whump. Gen / friendship**. **

**Rating**: T

**Summary:**John's loyalty to one of his team members is strongly tested when an advanced alien group kidnap the team, discover Teyla´s link to the Wraith and decide it's a bad thing. (team whump, but Shep gets the brunt of it). Takes place in season 3, post –The Game- spoilers up to and including that one.

**Characters:** John Sheppard, Ronon Dex, Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Elizabeth Weir,

Carson Beckett / Others.

**Warnings: **None that I could think of…

The story is complete, but it's easier to update them chapter by chapter and I will, hopefully, update daily.

Big thanks to **putschki1969** from GW and **Sterenyk Strey** for giving this story a critical eye and giving me some much appreciated advice during the tale. All mistakes are mine, and I hope it's a fun read!

**Chapter One **

John Sheppard could no longer keep himself from falling into the wet sand beneath his feet. His face and belly hit the ground, the cold mud soaked through his BDUs and waves of water made their way into his airways. He coughed, but only succeeded in inhaling more water.

He really wished he could use his hands to wipe the grime and dirt from his face and to steady himself upwards, but they were held tightly bound behind his back with metallic handcuffs.

Their supposedly harmless mission to M5X 666 had turned south rather fast, really making its sinister designation proud. John chuckled bitterly at the memory of McKay's scoffing when he had joked about the designation being a bad omen, but here they were, running from allies-turned-hostiles faster than John had been able to say "I told you so!"

Up until now, John had been quite good in keeping his balance enough not to fall, but his luck was running out.

Teyla and Ronon had been walking ahead of him and while McKay was having some trouble to keep up with their quick pace, he didn't join the waves as often as John did. To be honest, he had yet to fall even once, much to Sheppard's chagrin.

Not that he wished for them both to keep falling, but he really hated being the slow one in the group, never mind the circumstances. He was just glad that none of his men from the military were around to see their CO like this.

John called on his remaining strength and pushed himself up on his knees to give himself a moment while he exhaled hard through his nose to clear it of the muddy sand and water, but broke into another cough instead.

"John?" Teyla threw him a concerned look that he really didn't care for.

Worse yet, she had stopped walking, tilting her head as if in confusion about what to do next.

Ronon had offered to carry him, Teyla and McKay had both offered to take him between them for steadying, but he wouldn't have any of it.

Ronon and Teyla had put quite a distance between themselves and John and Rodney, which Teyla was about to remedy when she finally decided to run back to him.

He shook his head and motioned in the direction she came from, "Stop! I'm fine, just needed a … a moment, keep walking!"

John cursed himself and forced his shaky legs to lock under him enough to get back on his feet, a task that would have been much easier to handle if his hands had been free.

None of their knives, not even Ronon´s sword, had been able to cut through the metallic clasps, any attempt had tightened their grip around his wrists and had caused sparks from an apparent force field, until they finally gave up and decided to let somebody on Atlantis deal with it once they were back home.

He knew he was slowing them down by his constant falling and there was not a thing he could do about it, other than cursing himself, but he would be damned if he let himself be carried while his legs still worked.

Besides, having to carry him would slow them down just as much, so he could just as well spare them the added weight of his sorry ass to haul along.

"Like hell you're fine!" McKay panted behind him, coming to a halt and grabbing Sheppard's right arm by the elbow, "you shouldn't even be walking on your own through this mess!"

"I CAN and I WILL!!" John snapped at him, trying to yank his arm free of Rodney's grip but failing. He exhaled in frustration and quickly turned around to continue his wade through the mud towards Ronon and Teyla, who had now stopped to wait for him and McKay rather than continuing with their much quicker pace.

McKay still held tight to John's elbow and tried his best to keep up with his friend, steadying him whether he wanted the help or not. "Do you actually LIKE the way your

face keeps hitting the ground? Granted, with the water and sand it's a lot softer for your thick head, but…"

"Rodney!" John spun around, almost knocking McKay off his feet and gave him a glare, "Stop talking and concentrate on getting your ass to the Jumper!" and with another yank of his trapped elbow, he added, "Let go of me!!"

McKay did and John stomped forwards, only to almost fall again into another stumble which was stopped by both, McKay speeding forward and regaining his hold of Sheppard's right elbow, and Teyla´s hands reaching out for his left.

"John, let us help you!" Teyla said, locking her arm in between his and pulling him in motion, no argument to be had.

Sheppard sighed, "Guys! I appreciate you wanting to help out, but it's really not necessary!!"

The sound of a familiar blaster coming to life made John flinch involuntarily.

"Actually, I say it is!" the Satedan growled when they reached him, his gaze locked onto something behind them in the distance.

"Gee, thanks, Chewie!" John grumbled, half expecting to find himself on the receiving end of a stun shot to stop the argument, but when he followed his friend's gaze, his eyes went wide at the sight of half a dozen armed men seated on hovering flying crafts, still tiny in the distance but speeding towards them, and howling in anger.

"What the hell?" McKay yelped, his eyes nearly popping out of their sockets. "They weren't supposed to find out we're gone until morning!" he stared at Ronon and added with a high pitched voice, "I thought you stunned them!"

John glanced at Ronon, "You didn't kill their people, did you?.. Hey..!" he yelped in surprise when Ronon suddenly gripped him around his middle, lifted him off his feet and none too gently threw him over his shoulder like a potato sack, "Ronon…."

"Not up for discussion, Sheppard!" Ronon shot back, "we gotta move fast and letting you stumble behind us will only slow us down!"

Being draped over Ronon´s shoulder with his hands bound behind his back was quite the uncomfortable position, and John still struggled in the grip when Ronon turned to McKay and Teyla, who both had already broken into a run before the Satedan could tell them to move it.

"Ronon, come on man…"

Ronon tightened his hold, "don't make me shoot you!"

"Uh..," Sheppard didn't get out more than that when Ronon sprang into a run, his shoulder knocking into John's chest and forcing any air otherwise used for a protest out of him.

"And no," Ronon finally replied, "I didn't kill them… yet"

McKay and Teyla kept up the pace, and while Rodney was wheezing a little, he didn't fall much behind. "Really wish we hadn't left our guns in the Jumper! Whose brilliant idea was that, anyway?!" he gasped out in between laboured breaths.

"Told you it was a bad idea!" Ronon deadpanned.

Teyla, despite still running, shook her head, "We were supposed to be among friends, there was no reason to assume that we would be attacked!"

"Always be prepared!" Ronon shot back.

Despite everything happening around them, Sheppard had to chuckle at that, "Well said, boy scout!"

They could just see the outlines of their puddle jumper, meaning safety, when the hover crafts closed the distance and the first three men came within weapon's range.

Something sharp struck Sheppard in the left leg and he yelped in both surprise and pain.

He tried to look at his leg but since he couldn't while draped over Ronon´s shoulder, he went for distracting himself by loudly cursing himself for allowing this mess to happen in the first place, and even more so, for the fact he couldn't do anything to help out.

Bullets and stunner blasts alike kept whizzing past and around them.

Ronon turned around while staying at a run, and fired a round into their attackers, knocking one of the pursuers off his craft and forcing the other two to steer away from him. One didn't make it and crashed into the ground, his craft whooshing away into the air without sense of direction, hitting into and knocking another hover craft pilot from his path until he too lost his balance and forced his craft to come to a halt to avoid falling off it.

The jumper was now right behind them and Rodney pushed the remote to open the rear hatch, the team running into the shelter of Jumper One.

Rodney hit the control to bring the hatch back up, locking them within the safety of the jumper and slamming his hand down on the control button to get the jumper's protective shield up, while Ronon set John down.

Sheppard hissed in pain when his leg gave out, refusing to take any of his weight.

Teyla and Ronon caught him before he could hit the ground, and eased him down on the floor.

"I think I caught a bullet!" Sheppard grimaced at their shocked expressions, following their gaze down his leg and at the puddle of blood quickly pooling underneath his BDUs. He longed to be able to press a hand into the wound, but his bound hands prevented him from doing so.

"Oh my God!" Rodney's face turned white, dumbfounded in what to do next.

"We must stop the bleeding!" Teyla urged, and searched through her tac vest for the pressure bandage, which she quickly uncoiled, "Ronon…"

"Yeah I know!" the Satedan replied, already a knife in his hand and slicing through the leg of Johns BDUs, removing the fabric from the wound.

Teyla wrapped the pressure bandage around the injury and knotted it in place. "Rodney, give John some water!" she said, just to wake McKay from his stupor.

"Wha? Oh, right!" Rodney grabbed a bottle and held it out for John, who shook his head.

"Not yet! Let's just get the hell outta here!"

Sheppard tried to lift himself back up in a standing position, now that his leg was tended to, but not quite managing. He took a deep breath, held it to brace himself and tried again, only to slump back down and release the trapped air in his lungs with frustration.

"John", Teyla put her hand on his shoulder and shook her head, "You cannot…"

"I can still fly us home, I just need to sit down over there", John answered with a nod toward the cockpit, releasing another deep, pain-filled breath.

"And how exactly will you manage that in your current hogtied state?" Rodney admonished, "You stay put, I can fly this thing home too, you know, you won't be able to handle any controls anyways right now!"

John looked at Rodney for a moment, pressed his mouth shut and finally nodded, "Ok, just remember to fly in a straight line!"

McKay crossed his arms, "This coming from the guy doing face plants on the beach…!"

Sheppard shot him a glare, and Ronon gave him a look that had the scientist hurry off into the pilot's area, when a rain of bullets and glass sprayed from the front into the back of the Jumper.

"JESUS!" McKay yelled, hunching over and bringing his hands up to protect his face while staring in horror at the shattered windshield and the onslaught of even more bullets on the Jumper's controls.

Ronon jumped to his feet with a raised gun and pulled McKay back to them, pushing Rodney down to the floor and out of harm's way.

"Close the bulkhead door!" Sheppard yelled at the shocked scientist, who complied and hit the button, shielding them from the bullets and glass still spraying in every direction.

"How is this possible?!" Teyla gasped, clicking on her flashlight and illuminating the room, "have you not raised the shield, Rodney?!"

"Of course I did!!" McKay turned around to face his team, "Their bullets went straight through it!"

"What are you talking about?!" John looked back at Rodney in confusion, trying to straighten himself up but hissing in pain when his injured leg was pulled in an uncomfortable angle, "how did they do that!?"

Teyla nervously eyed the bulkhead door and tensed, "Will they get through?"

McKay shook his head, "no, we're safe in here, the hull is pretty steady and their weapons aren't strong enough to do any damage to it…"

Sheppard wasn't so sure, "You sure about that? They just smashed the window of the Jumper, which was SUPPOSED to be protected by the shield!"

McKay's face went slack, "True, and that's not the only…"

"Can you FIX it?!"

"Sure, just point me to the next bullet proof glass store!" McKay snorted, "No! There is no taking this ship into space or through a Gate now, even if I could get the shield back up and working; the controls and the DHD have been shot to hell!"

Teyla stared at the panicked scientist, then at Sheppard's leg and grimaced at the sight.

The bandage she had wrapped around John's injury was already soaked through with blood.

**************

End of chapter one

- to be continued….


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Elizabeth Weir braced her arms on the control room balcony rail, and watched the Atlantis gate impatiently.

There had been a dial in from M5X 666 roughly half an hour ago, but the gate had shut down before any identification had been made. Since this was the planet that Sheppard's team was currently working on, she had thought it her 2IC, potentially being in trouble.

Any attempt to get in contact with him or the rest of his team since had failed.

It could simply be a case of John forgetting to take his radio with him again, but truth be told, he had never done that again after the incident with the nanovirus, and it had never happened off world. Even more so, it would be rather odd for the entire team to go without their radios, which gave her stomach some rather nasty knots.

She had Chuck and Amelia redial M5X 666 to try them again one more time, then would be sending a second jumper.

"Any luck?" she asked when she entered the control room for what felt like the hundredth time this day.

Amelia shook her head with a sombre expression. "No, Ma´am!"

Chuck was just in the process of dialling the address once more, but shook his head in her direction when his repeated call for comment once again stayed unanswered.

She released a breath of disappointment, "Keep trying! Meanwhile, I want Major Lorne and his team ready for a possible rescue mission!"

Chuck nodded again and was about to shut the gate down, but suddenly tensed, listening in.

Elizabeth was just about to head back to her office, when Chuck called her back.

"Dr. Weir, there is apparently somebody on the Pekoralas communicator, but he, or they, aren't replying to me, they do seem to argue… I don't think they're aware of …"

"Patch me through!"

Elizabeth took a breath, and Chuck nodded, giving her the go ahead. "Council Kontan?! Can you hear me?! This is Atlantis, if you receive this, please respond!"

Council Cristana Kontan had been the one to handle all dealings with Atlantis so far, and Elizabeth decided it must have been her on the other side, though why she wouldn't simply answer the call was beyond her.

The voices went silent, but there was no reply.

"Hello?" she tried again, "can anyone hear me? This is Dr. Elizabeth Weir from Atlantis, are you re-…"

A male voice answered in uncertainty instead, but it was a strange one. "Atlantis?"

Elizabeth straightened, "Hello? To whom am I speaking?"

Clearer now, the voice replied, "This is Motalko, I am the speaker for the council of the protected people on Pekoralas, second to Council member Kontan."

Motalko hesitated slightly before he added, "Did you say you were from Atlantis?"

"Yes. This is Dr. Elizabeth Weir. I am trying to get in contact with Colonel John Sheppard and his team…. "

"I am sorry, Dr. Weir. But Colonel Sheppard is no longer in our custody."

Elizabeth practically heard alarm bells ringing loudly, "Custody… wait, why would he… where is he? Please let me talk to him."

"I am afraid that is not possible, but you may…"

The voice cut off then, and a second one bellowed into the room, loud enough for Weir to wince.

"YOUR PEOPLE MUST PAY FOR THIS ATROCITY!!" the booming voice demanded.

Elizabeth shared a baffled look with Chuck and Amelia, who both raised their eyebrows, "Excuse me?!"

Motalko spoke again, "I am sorry to inform you, that your colonel Sheppard is guilty of destroying one of our most valuable devices. Our law demands proper reprimand that compensates for the damage."

***

Teyla removed her jacket, and placed it behind John's head, lodging it in place like a pillow.

John smiled at her, "You know, this feels horribly familiar."

"Very true," she nodded and held a bottle of water to his mouth. He took a deep gulp, and she added with a smile, "But at least we are not stuck in a gate this time!"

"And no bug on your neck!" Rodney offered, planting his own hand on the exact spot on his own neck where the Iratus bug had once latched onto John.

The pilot brought a shoulder up to take care of the sudden itch in that area and glared at Rodney for the reminder. "Thanks!"

McKay held his hands up and shrugged, "Hey, just looking on the bright side here!"

"Great!" John growled, "Let's all break into song!" then added on a chuckle, "666 – should have really known better, McKay!"

Teyla and Ronon exchanged a confused look with each other and John sighed. Sometimes he really wished that not all Earth jokes were utterly lost on the two Pegasus natives, it was only half as much fun to rile Rodney up without the right audience.

"Oh please! We had no problem until you had to pull a Peter Pan!" Rodney shot back, giving him a stern look that would have made a pissed off parent proud. "Of all things you could have gotten us into trouble for over there-!"

"Do we have to get into this AGAIN?!" John shot him another glare and tried to get himself in a more comfortable position by snuggling his head into the makeshift pillow once known as Teyla´s jacket.

The real bummer of it was that Rodney was right though.

It had actually been quite a bunch of nice people over there, letting McKay look into several Ancient artefacts and researching them to his heart's content, until an apparent children's toy ball had come into the picture, lodged in a pillowed case of its own with some Ancient writing on one side, but had otherwise not reacted to either simple touch, or showing other signs of "on/off" buttons or the like.

John and Rodney had both thought it some junk, perhaps once belonging to a kid with a hero crush on some long dead famous Ancient guy or woman, who had been nice enough to sign it with an autograph. Like a baseball, or a football glove.

"You didn't warn him either, McKay!" Ronon reminded the scientist, smirking at John who gave him a grateful nod back.

John pointed at Ronon, "Thank you. It's not like you were the poster child for caution there, Rodney!"

Teyla sighed and sat down next to John, "It is as much my fault than it is John's" she said, "if I had not asked…"

John shook his head "No, it's not your fau-…"

Ronon put a comforting hand on her shoulder, "Hey, we all thought it was just a rubber fubber."

"Flubber!" Rodney corrected and John shrugged with a lopsided grin when they both stared at

him with an eye roll.

The locals had of course no clue either, what a flubber was or where the fun of playing with one came in. A simple case of show and tell, where was the harm? After all, Rodney had come up empty in his search for any use of it at all.

Only, this so called toy hadn't been one of those after all as it turned out when, instead of bouncing off the floor, it shattered into pieces, causing less the supposed fun and more of a panic among the present Pekoralas inhabitants. It didn't take them long to start shouting insults and pointing fingers.

Any attempt to apologize had been lost in the ensuing hassle of flying fists, until their security was called in to stop a bunch of suddenly fighting crowds, which would have had any Western movie director filming a bar fight scene proud.

The only thing missing had been the whiskey bottles.

Once the guards had succeeded in calming the people, and managed to ask for the one responsible for the brawl, several fingers were pointed in Sheppard's direction, along with shouts of bringing about destruction.

The guards looked back and forth between him and the now shattered pieces of the object on the floor. There was no point in playing innocent, since the room was full of witnesses and John felt too much of an adult to do so in the first place, so he had simply shrugged, flashed an abashed grin while rubbing the back of his neck, and tried to apologize again, hoping they would see the incident as the shallow, yet shameful mistake it was.

They arrested him instead.

Turned out the toy it wasn't had been part of some quite valuable private collection lent to the lab, the tech working on it on leave (and why didn't they just say so sooner?!) while the owners were quite known for being none too happy with any purposeful destruction of their property.

The enforcers had slapped the metallic handcuffs onto him, bound his hands behind his back and had planned to drag him to another building to wait for the owner of the destroyed object, who would be further deciding his fate.

His team had tried to stop it of course, not trusting anything good to come about, but John had simply shaken his head, still confident that this could be dealt with best by cooperation.

Until one of the guards in a rage over getting a fist in his face during the previous fight announced he would enjoy seeing his destructive hands cut off, and had started to push John until it nearly knocked him off his feet, which had Ronon pissed off, and his trigger finger seriously itchy.

Luckily enough, he had still set his gun on stun and hadn't actually killed anyone, but it didn't stop the guards from shouting bloody murder upon seeing their "fallen" pals and starting to fire their own guns, real guns, not the ones only meant to stun, but actually to kill.

Talk about overreaction.

It took Teyla´s skills in hand-to-hand (and knee-to-weapon) kicks and punches to distract the bullets from turning anyone into a Swiss cheese and Ronon simply continued to aim and shoot at anyone so much as stirring, until the group of six guards were finally slumped on the floor.

Dumbfounded, John had stared at them until Teyla grabbed him by the arm and Ronon shouted at him to run.

Unfortunately these guys seemed more resistant against the stunner blast effects than John would have liked, and had woken up way before the supposed time, or they wouldn't have caught up with his team quite so soon.

Now they had them cornered in their own jumper, had damaged it so they couldn't escape and John wondered if this whole mess had been worth it after all.

He doubted the guard had been serious, these people had been friends with Atlantis after all, and granted, he had pissed them off, but surely, they could have been reasoned with?

That is, before all hell broke loose.

Lost in thought, he didn't even notice when Teyla placed a hand on his shoulder and he flinched when he saw her staring at him, apparently waiting for an answer, "sorry… what?"

She gave him a short smile; then straightened, "John, I said we must change the bandage now - your wound has not stopped bleeding!"

"Oh." He followed her gaze, and only now noticed that his leg had already been stripped of any previous dressings. "Um, okay?" He looked up at her again and was surprised to find her face so tense, yet averted from his gaze.

"The bleeding must be stopped first," she said again, her eyes refusing to meet his. "I am sorry."

John watched Teyla with confusion as she handed Ronon her Athosian fire laser.

Ronon sat down next to John, placed a hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes, "The good news? No bullet in there; but we have to seal the injury!"

John swallowed hard, knowing what his friend meant all too well.

This was going to hurt. Bad.

Ronon gave his shoulder a squeeze and nodded, "That would be the bad news!"

His friend pulled him forward and Teyla moved to sit behind John, bracing his back against her chest while Ronon pulled his sword out of its sheath.

He held the sheath in front of John, "here, bite on this!"

John looked up at him, "You sure?! I'll probably bite it through, you know?" he joked, his nervous grin fading as fast as it came and his gaze fixed on the sword holder.

The Satedan shrugged, "Doesn't matter. Better this than your tongue!"

Before John could say anything more, Ronon turned around and, with one hand holding the sword up, used the other to work the fire laser over the blade until it glowed red.

Teyla placed one arm around his chest to hold John in place, and slipped the sheath sideways into John's mouth with the other, so he could clench his teeth into the leather.

Ronon crouched next to him and brought the heated blade close to the injury, "Ready?"

John stared at the blade for a moment, took a deep breath through his nose to brace himself and finally nodded.

***

"How did this happen? Were they involved in some accident? Are they okay!?" Elizabeth worriedly asked with eyebrows raised even higher.

Booming Voice snorted nearby, and Motalko added, with an increasingly annoyed sound to his voice, "Your people are fine, but the device was most likely destroyed on purpose, which calls for…"

"JUSTICE! I demand JUSTICE for this!" Booming Voice yelled over Motalko´s reply.

Elizabeth tensed, "They were arrested?" she asked, wishing not for the first time, they had brought some lawyers on the expedition.

Botalko´s voice turned angry, "that would have been the proper procedure to ensure an investigation, but the colonel chose to ignore our rules and has escaped with his comrades before justice could be served!"

That didn't sound like John at all, Elizabeth thought, "Why would he do that? I am sure there was some kind of misunderst-"

Booming voice interfered again, before she could finish, "Doesn't matter WHY this coward decided to run!! Once my security catches up with him, he will pay for destroying what was mine!"

With that, the connection was severed.

Elizabeth simply stood frozen for a moment.

John Sheppard really had a talent for making enemies. But why would he destroy some device on purpose, had it been a danger to him, to them all perhaps? Or was it really just some huge misunderstanding?!

***

Ronon lodged one arm around John's upper leg to hold it in place and pressed the sword against the wound on his lower leg with the other, holding the hot blade there until the smell of smouldering skin filled the interior of the jumper.

McKay's eyes locked on John, writhing and bucking in agony against Teyla´s hold, his muffled screams escaping in short periods of pants and gasps through the leather sheath still held in place by Teyla´s hand, and his teeth lodged into the leather deep enough to leave permanent bite marks. The veins on his neck bulged until they looked ready to pop out, and his eyes were squeezed shut so tight, tears were streaming out of the corners.

Rodney felt his legs give out under him and lowered himself onto one of the benches, feeling his blood draining from his face and was afraid to lose his lunch if he didn't sit down.

He caught Teyla´s gaze, her eyes just as full of tears in sympathy for her suffering friend, her face just as tense as Sheppard's, the arm around John's chest tightening with a force that Rodney was sure must be causing severe damage to the man's ribcage, and all the while making sure John wouldn't lose his grip on the leather sheath, not that that seemed even possible with the force the man was biting into it.

He had seen that look of pure agony on John before, and it wasn't all that long ago. Back then and now again, they were forced to watch it happen and were helpless to do anything to make it stop. Even with the knowledge that this time, it was done to help John in the end, it still made Rodney sick to the stomach to see his friend like that.

The only face Rodney couldn't see was Ronon´s as he was sitting with his back to him while he worked the wound sealed.

He finally removed the blade from Sheppard's leg after what felt like an eternity and John eased out of his agony, falling back against Teyla, gasping and shaking.

Teyla removed the sheath from his mouth and let it slide to the ground while bringing her hand up to wipe a fistful of sweat soaked hair out of John's face and gently starting to stroke his forehead, "It is over, John!"

Ronon finally turned around and Rodney saw the anger in his eyes. Not at John, but that he had been forced to hurt Sheppard like that. He squeezed John's shoulder, "You okay?!"

John nodded at him, his mouth pressed tightly shut, and he was still shaking.

"Wow, that sucked!" he panted, blinking his eyes until he could see through the tears, but then his eyes fell shut and he suddenly sagged against Teyla.

"John!" Teyla tensed in alarm and cupped Sheppard's chin, bringing his lolling head up from his chest without meeting resistance. John's eyes remained closed and he didn't reply.

Ronon pressed two fingers into his pulse point and sighed in relief.

"Passed out!" he said with a reassuring smile to Teyla and patted the unconscious pilot on the shoulder, then looked at Rodney, "McKay, bring me the alcohol!"

McKay stared at him dumbfounded for a moment. "What? You want a drink now?!" he cried, but finally nodded when he got it. "Oh right, fighting infection!" He grabbed the medical kit, put it on the bench and went through its contents.

Teyla put her BDU jacket back under John's head before easing him down to the floor, and Rodney handed the bottle of alcohol to Ronon, who removed the lid and sniffed at it, before he lifted John's lower leg up and poured the alcohol over the wound, then wrapped another bandage around it.

Rodney took his own jacket off and rolled it up. "Um, I think, should I…?" he pointed at John's leg, and Teyla nodded in approval.

He placed it under the injured leg, cushioning it from the hard floor of the Jumper, then went for some trunk in the storage and found a blanket, which they quickly draped around Sheppard.

With the screams of pain only a bad memory, it suddenly occurred to Rodney that the attacks on the Jumper had stopped.

*********

They had sat down on the benches, listening to any noise that might tell them what was happening outside, but it had remained to be silent for a long enough time to start wondering whether it would be safe to open the bulkhead and have a look without getting shot.

"Um, do you think our friends have left?" Rodney asked, pointing at the bulkhead door.

Teyla exchanged an odd look with Ronon, before replying. "I would be very surprised!"

"Yeah, don't buy it either!" Ronon agreed.

"We cannot stay in here forever though," Teyla said, staring at the bulkhead door as if trying to look through it. "Perhaps we should try to appeal to them."

Ronon raised an eyebrow and McKay thought she had completely lost it.

Teyla looked at them with intent. "John is severely wounded, and even though we have been able to stop the bleeding….without proper medical care," she stared at the discarded blood soaked bandage on the floor and John's sweat covered face, "and if infection should become an issue after all…he will not last long."

She crouched back next to Sheppard and wiped the sweat off his face.

"He won't last long either, if they throw him into their jail cell and chop him to pieces!" McKay snapped.

"We do not know their punishment for what has been done, it may not be as severe!" Teyla

tried to reason, "we have been friends with these people, I do not think they truly mean us harm over an honest mistake."

Ronon snorted at this, "Their bullets were not all that friendly!"

"After you started shooting first." Teyla reminded him.

"I still don't like it!" the Satedan growled, "I'd say we call up Atlantis and have Lorne and a bunch of marines shoot us free!"

Rodney pointed at him, "Oh, I like that plan!"

Teyla obviously didn't, "I am unsure", she said, "This incident might destroy our alliance with these people…."

Rodney huffed, "So? What about them destroying the Jumper?"

Teyla stared at the bulkhead door again, "I do not understand how this could even go this far…"

Her gaze trailed to John when his healthy leg was suddenly bending until the knee poked through under the blanket and he started to wake up with moans and groans, his arm jerking as if John was trying to lift it.

"Because …," Sheppard finally said, giving up on trying to put one of his restrained hands to his head and opened his eyes slowly, "they're nuts!"

"And because you haven't learned a thing from our whole disaster with the game console!" McKay said, walking over to his friend and offering a bottle of water to his mouth, which John took gratefully. "The Ancients weren't big on creating actual toys, no matter how it looks!"

"Now you tell me!" Sheppard grimaced when his leg pulled, and gave Rodney the ultimate –it's-all-your-fault-look.

McKay's mouth turned crooked, "Oh I'm sorry Colonel Cranky Pants, but how exactly was I supposed to know you were going to SMASH the thing to the ground??"

"You SAID it was nothing other than a rubber ball!" Sheppard reminded him.

"I said PROBABLY!" the scientist spat back, "There was no way to know for sure! And it obviously wasn't, or we wouldn't be stuck in a destroyed jumper now…!"

"Destroyed? What are you … oh…" Sheppard recalled the bullets smashing through and taking their jumper out of commission with a sudden clarity that almost hurt, and pressed his mouth shut in annoyance." Right! You were too busy catching your breath to raise the shield in time…"

"I was NOT!" McKay protested loudly, his face turning an even darker shade of red when Sheppard suddenly smirked at him and Rodney flared his nostrils, "Oh, ha-ha. Very funny!"

Ronon and Teyla shared a glare and the Athosian turned to face Rodney.

McKay held up his hand to silence her before she could even open her mouth, and said with a little less volume to his voice, "Just how the hell did they shoot through that??"

"Better yet," Ronon said before anyone else could say something, "why have they stopped shooting?!"

"Probably noticed they couldn't get through the bulkhead door and just gave up…" Sheppard suggested.

"So, we're safe until our supplies run out and we get hungry or thirsty enough to leave our little prison here", McKay said, then looked at John, "Um, just out of curiosity, but how much food do they store on the Jumpers?!"

Sheppard stared at him blankly, "it wasn't supposed to be a long stay and we knew we'd be getting food with our "friends" …"

"Food is not our only concern here", Teyla motioned to John's leg, "if you do not get treatment soon, it will only get worse!"

"Beckett will be here in no time. They have already sent the rescue Jumper, right?" John asked.

His team exchanged awkward looks, Ronon looked away and Teyla found the floor suddenly rather fascinating.

"You didn't tell them?" Sheppard nagged, when nobody broke the silence.

"Um, destroyed Jumper DHD here!" McKay finally reminded him, "and no access to their DHD from within here, there is no way of calling Atlantis!"

"They will figure it out when we don't call in on time, and send someone!" Sheppard reasoned. "We just wait for Elizabeth to call us."

"Oh, yeah, forgot to tell you before you decided to take a nap," Rodney finally admitted. "But Atlantis has no way of contacting us either…"

"Why?"

"Whatever disabled the shield also disabled our radios!" McKay sighed, and sat down again.

Sheppard stared at him, then at each of his team mates, who simply nodded in a "go figure, we're screwed again" manner, and he sat back, letting out a sigh of frustration.

Surely, Elizabeth was smart enough to figure that something was wrong and just act on instinct. It wouldn't be the first time.

He just wished it hadn't been under such stupid circumstances.

Nearly drifting off into thoughts again, he flinched when a bright green light blinded them for a short moment, before everything slipped back into darkness.

t.b.c.


	3. Chapter 3

The wronged one – chapter 3

***

"Master Balktorn!" the soldier saluted in front of the huge man coming to a halt in front of him, and he pointed with his weapon to the silver aircraft with its shattered front window.

"We have the Accused cornered, but we were unable to get through to them!"

Balktorn still smiled in satisfaction, "Don't worry about it! You can leave him to me now. I will teach him a lesson that will burn in his soul to never touch and destroy my property again!"

"Very well, Master Balktorn!" the soldier nodded and ordered his men to retreat.

Balktorn nodded at them as they turned to head back to the city, and took wide strides towards the craft, where he slammed a palm sized device against the hull with aggressive force, then pushed a button on the short chain around his wrist, "Lik´al; get us on board!"

There was a short series of high and low chirping in reply, before the Ancestor ship and Balktorn were illuminated in a green light and vanished into thin air.

***

"What the hell was THAT?!" McKay yelled, rubbing his eyes and blinking in quick succession.

"I'd say they didn't give up on us after all!" Sheppard replied, and they all flinched when a loud voice suddenly filled the room as if it had come from somebody inside.

"Surrender now and we will guarantee your survival, but if you continue to evade the trial, we will have no choice but to use deadly force!"

They exchanged worried glances.

Ronon tightened his finger on the trigger of his gun and looked at John. "What's the plan?!"

John licked his lips, then his shoulders slumped. "Open the bulkhead and rear hatch!" he finally replied, nodding towards the remote in McKay's hand, and all eyes were on him as if he had gone crazy.

"Excuse me? Who knows what's expecting us out there!" McKay protested.

"This has gone on long enough, we all know I screwed up, I might as well own up to it before they blow us up!" John insisted, grimacing in pain again while trying to sit up straighter, "Let's try and get this sorted before it gets worse!"

"But…!"

"I believe John is right," Teyla put a hand on Rodney's arm, "there is no reason to delay this any further."

Ronon narrowed his eyes at them, "Open that door, they'll start shooting first, ask questions later!"

"Perhaps they are still willing to listen to us first," Teyla said, her head tilted in consideration, "they have stopped the attack on the jumper after all"

"Only because it was pointless!" Ronon protested, rolling his eyes, "they couldn't get through, so they stopped trying. Now they're trying to smoke us out by using threats!"

Sheppard looked at him for a while, shook his head slowly and nodded to Rodney, "Do it!"

Teyla nodded while McKay and Ronon exchanged a look, both clearly hating the idea.

"No!" McKay finally said, and crossed his arms, "you're obviously speaking out of a fever here, because you're not making any sense!"

John locked eyes with him, "Rodney! We, well, I, made a mistake, they have the right to get an answer, and I don't want to be stuck in here any longer than I really have to! Open the hatch!"

McKay opened his mouth in another protest, but John interrupted, "Or you can tell Elizabeth WHY we have made yet another enemy, and out of people powerful enough to penetrate the jumper's shields, no less. You want to do that?"

McKay opened his mouth again, but snapped it shut and finally shrugged his shoulder. "Fine!" he spat with a snort, "But don't blame me when they kill all of us!" and lowered the shield.

They were no longer in the field they had parked the Jumper.

They were inside a ship.

***

A blue light illuminated Teyla and she fell to the floor in a heap, unconscious.

John tensed and stared at her while Ronon raised his gun at the yet to be revealed enemy.

McKay stepped backwards, hands up in the air and his face going white. "See? I TOLD YOU!" Then he was shot with a ray of blue light as well, and joined Teyla on the ground.

"About time!" the voice from before said.

John and Ronon looked up and saw a big guy, bigger and taller even than Ronon, standing at the entrance of the ramp, two guards on either side of him, their stunners trained on Ronon before he could shoot at them. The middle guy glanced at John sitting on the floor, but returned his gaze to Ronon.

A third guard pointed another gun, not looking like a stunner at all, at their two unconscious team mates.

"Which one of you is Sheppard?" the middle guy asked, looking at Ronon, who narrowed his eyes dangerously at the intruder.

John was about to say something, but Ronon stepped forward, locking eyes with the guy and bared his teeth like an animal ready to tear flesh, "What do you want?!"

"The one with the cursed hands!" the man answered, narrowing his own eyes just as dangerously at Ronon, "Are you responsible for this?!"

John cleared his throat, "No, he's not!" he said, and the man turned his attention to him, "that would be me."

The huge guy entered the jumper and moved in John's direction, shoving Ronon away from him with more ease than John thought possible, not bothering with introducing himself or acknowledging Ronon in any further way, even though the Satedan was seething with anger.

John looked up at him, "Look, shooting my people is really not necess-…".

Huge Guy crouched next to John, "Colonel Sheppard, you should save your strength for the trial!"

"It was an acci- , "

Huge punched John hard in the face and John started to see stars.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head but Huge grabbed a fistful of John's hair and brought his face close to his own. "You ruined something of mine, Sheppard! Now it's my turn!"

"That your idea of 'no harm'?" John panted.

"BE SILENT!" Huge punched a fist into Sheppard's gut, and John curled up with a grunt of pain while the guy leaned back and grabbed something from his coat one handed, the other still clasped in John's hair.

Ronon pulled the trigger of his blaster but it was knocked out of his hands by some unseen force, knocking Ronon on the floor along with it. He stared at the guards with murder in his eyes, and one of them grinned at him as he kicked the blaster out of the Jumper where the other guard picked it up.

Huge guy snapped an iron clasp around John's throat and some red light turned into a green glow in the front, while all movements of John seemed suddenly slowed. "Get on your feet, Sheppard! It's time to go!" the man growled, stood up and kicked John's flank, before ordering his guards, "Grab the female!"

When one of them moved towards her, Ronon shot up and tried to bring a fist to the man but a shot from one of the stunners was fired at his leg and it gave out from under him, causing him to crash back to the floor.

Huge guy grabbed and dragged Sheppard towards the exit while one of the guards did the same with Teyla, and Ronon roared in anger.

He pushed himself up, and threw his weight into them, trying to crush them to the floor and force them to release his friends. The guard lost his hold on Teyla and fell, but the bigger man didn't even seem fazed by it.

He threw Ronon off his back with ease by delivering a fist into Ronon´s mouth and throat in

quick succession, until the Satedan choked and tried to gasp in air.

Huge gave him a vicious kick in the flanks that sent him sprawling into the opposite wall, "stay out of this, boy, or I will see myself forced to kill you!"

Huge turned his attention back to John, grabbing him by the neck of the iron clasp again, and hauled him to his feet, causing John to choke out a gasp when the edge bit into his throat and to yelp in pain when his injured leg was forced to take some weight.

Ronon spit out some blood, and bared his teeth, "Not if I kill you first!"

He pushed himself back up, and charged the man again, slinging his arm around the man's throat and trying to squeeze.

Huge let go of John, who hit the ground hard and screamed with the pain of impact against his injured leg.

Ronon put more pressure on the man's neck, trying to break it, but was then struck by a stunner blast in the back. He didn't let go until a second hit him, but eventually lost his grip and fell to the floor.

Huge gasped for air, and kicked him viciously in the ribs, "Tell the other one not to make any trouble or your friends die!"

He watched helplessly as John and Teyla were dragged away, and his body slumped into unconsciousness.

He was struck with three more stunner blasts nevertheless.

***

John was slammed into a chair, his still secured arms hurting like a bitch when they knocked into his back by the impact, his ankles were quickly secured to the chair, and his left leg was throbbing with pain.

He tried to get a look at it, as he was sure it had started to bleed again.

A nasty backhand slapped him across the face to get his attention, accompanied with an angry voice. "Look at me!"

John lifted his head and came eye to eye with the man who had kidnapped him, sitting across from him in another chair. He looked around and a nasty feeling set up shop in his gut, "Where is Teyla?!"

This guy had brought him into some sort of interrogation room, but there was no sign of his team mate.

The man sat back. "She is alive, for now."

John stared at him, "Who are you?"

"I am Aflin Balktorn, the man you owe something of great value, Colonel Sheppard!"

"I do?!"

Balktorn stood up and grabbed John by his hair; inciting an involuntary hiss from John and locking eyes with him, "You destroyed something that was mine and I demand retribution!"

John sighed. "Look, if this is about the toy", Balktorn let go of his hair and backhanded him again.

John spit out some blood before trying to reason, "urgh, I mean, about the round thing we found…" the other man trained a gun on him and John swallowed, "can't we talk about this?"

"We are!" Balktorn said, and sat back in his own chair, "You should know, only the truth will grant you mercy during this trial!"

John raised his eyebrows, "this is the trial?"

The guy ignored the question and went on, "The lab techs tell me you destroyed the device without hesitation, so answer me - why?!"

"Um, don't I get a lawyer during your trials?" John asked instead, eyeing the gun still pointed at him nervously.

Balktorn seemed confused for a moment, "what is that supposed to be?"

"Well, "John scrunched his eyebrows, "some guy who sees to it that this, hearing, goes fairly and that my rights aren't violated like this…"

Balktorn shot to his feet, grabbed him by the chin and pressed the barrel of his gun against John's exposed throat, "YOU are the accused destroyer here! The only fairness would be me getting my retribution! As for your rights…it is up to me to decide your punishment, so you better please me with your answer, or you die right now!"

"Hey, let's not overreact here, okay?" John protested, and exhaled in relief when the gun was removed, but couldn't resist adding, "I guess you never heard of innocent until proven guilty?"

He was rewarded with yet another punch to the face that had his cheekbone starting to tingle and he took deep breaths until his eyes stopped crossing.

Balktorn sat back in his chair, "Several witnesses saw you doing what you did. There is no point in denying it, Sheppard! And this…" he waved around the room and at Sheppard's bindings, "would not have been necessary if you had not decided to run!"

John thin-lined his mouth, and slowly nodded, "I got that! Look, I am sorry for what happened, we had no idea… "

"Who ordered you to destroy it?!"

John stared at him in confusion for a moment, "Nobody. We didn't know it was of any worth."

Balktorn crossed his arms, "So you make a habit of destroying what is of no value to yourself?"

Sheppard stared at the floor with a sigh, shook his head, and looked back at the man, "That's not what I said…" he took a deep breath, "I had no intention of destroying it."

Balktorn locked eyes with him again, "And yet, that is exactly what your action accomplished! So, perhaps you understand my scepticism!!"

John licked his lips and decided to go with the truth. "We thought it was a toy, an object that children play with."

"And you always destroy children's play things?"

John exhaled, hard. "NO! You're supposed to throw and catch toy balls, and that's what it looked like!"

He flinched when Balktorn leaned forward, expecting another punch. Instead, the other man let his hand drop on John's shoulder and squeezed it. "I think you were given the exact description of what it looked like by those who sent you to destroy it!"

"You think wrong!" John sighed with frustration.

"Tell me who sent you, and I might show mercy, but if you continue to lie…" Balktorn´s finger tightened on the trigger threateningly.

Sheppard swallowed, "I told you…"

Balktorn narrowed his eyes and with a quick motion, ripped Sheppard's shirt open, revealing the still visible scar that Kolya's Wraith had left on him as a parting gift and John's heart sunk at the cruel smirk on his interrogator's face.

"Well, just what I thought!" the man sneered.

"Look. It's not what it looks like…"

"Save me the false tale!" Balktorn pressed his gun into John's throat again. "How did you know about this device? Who sent you?"

"I am getting the feeling you're not really interested in the truth here…" John panted.

Balktorn nodded to one of his guards at the door, who returned to them and pointed his gun at John while his boss released him from the ankle restraints. "And I am getting the feeling there is only one way to get you to stop lying!"

John was gripped by the collar around his neck and yanked back to his feet by the guard.

"Bring him!" Balktorn barked at the guard and took great strides away.

The guard hauled John along, being forced to catch him several times when John's injured leg gave out and hauled him back up with annoyance.

Balktorn walked them along the corridor until they stopped in front of a bulkhead door. Two other guards were posted on each side of the entrance while the door opened.

"So, what happens n-" John was pushed inside the room hard enough to fall onto his back before he could finish the sentence.

"Now you tell us the truth or your friends pay with their lives!" Balktorn merely said and made no move to help him up.

John pushed himself back to his feet, which was hard to do with his arms still secured behind his back, and turned around to face him, "this is really not any way to make new friends, you know!"

Balktorn snorted, "I am not interested in your friendship!"

John was about to say something else, but froze at the sensation of someone or something watching him, and shot around to see who or what it was.

"Well" a female voice answered, her slim and tall form hidden in shadows and John's heart slammed into his chest, "nice to meet you, Colonel Sheppard!"

She stood up from her chair and walked towards him.

Her white hair fell in long waves down to her hip and her white dress billowed with her movements. John relaxed a little when she turned out to be human.

"I have heard a lot about you!" she said, smirking at him.

The woman circled Sheppard, trailing a finger down the left side of his face and scratched along his throat with a sharp nail, just like a Wraith queen.

She looked John in the eyes with such intensity, he was sure she was searching his mind. He was beginning to feel unsettled by it when she suddenly stepped back from him, apparently surprised.

Knowing it would probably earn him trouble, he couldn't resist a smirk at that. "Problems?"

"I do not understand. I can not detect Wraith scents…" she said, more to Balktorn than to John, and her face tilted in confusion.

"Sorry to disappoint." Sheppard replied, smirking again, though confused all the same at her puzzlement. He didn't look like a Wraith, so why would she…

"But you have been touched by Wraith code once…" she continued, tilting her head, her face crunched in disgust while staring at his still half exposed chest, "have you not?!"

John froze for a moment, licked his lips nervously, but decided he wouldn't go there just yet. "Ok, look, why don't you just tell me what's going on here and I might do the same?"

She smiled and moved towards a curtained off area, where she removed a curtain to reveal an exam table.

There was a person strapped on it, a female, and when they got closer, John recognized Teyla´s features. She no longer wore her uniform, but a white suit, like scrubs but with long arms, cables were attached to her head and her chest and another one ran into her half exposed arm, like an IV, a blue liquid threading into her thickly and slow.

Several monitors beeped steadily and data was streaming over them. Teyla didn't seem conscious at all. She had the same metal clasp around her throat that John had, but hers was glowing orange rather than green in the front.

John tensed and tried to move towards her, but was held back by Balktorn who hissed into his ear, "Now, explain that!"

"That should be _my _line here!" John protested, his voice grave with anger, and he stared Balktorn coldly in the eyes. "What have you done with her??"

"Nothing was done by us!" Balktorn replied. "But obviously _something_ was done, by your people! To hide this!" he pointed at one of the monitors, "explain this!"

John stared at the computer screen in confusion. "What am I looking at here?"

When he received a hard slap to the back of his head, he added with a glare at his captors. "I have _no_ idea what this is, because I'm not a scientist and not a doctor. I have _no_ idea what I am supposed to be seeing here other than the fact that you are _hurting my friend_!!" He spat the last words at Balktorn and really wished he could do some harm on the guy in return for whatever he had ordered to be done to Teyla.

Balktorn punched him in the gut for the yell and John dropped to his knees from the impact, his injured leg immediately betraying him and he crashed onto his side with a gasp.

The woman finally saw fit to fill him in while helping him sit up and lean against the wall. "This is a genetic decoder. The one you call Teyla," she pointed towards his friend on the table, then looked down at him, "is clearly related to the Wraith."

John closed his eyes and released a deep breath.

Balktorn narrowed his eyes at him."So tell us, HOW is this possible?!"

Sheppard sighed, "It's a long story!"

Of all the people in the Galaxy to be advanced enough to detect this, it had to be THIS bunch.

"Interesting fact here!" Balktorn looked from John to Teyla, "since we happen to know of a group of Wraith that were turned human recently, then abandoned by those responsible before they could be destroyed. Does that sound familiar?"

John bit on his bottom lip, "How do you know about this?!"

Balktorn snorted. "See, Lik´al?! He does not even deny it!"

John glared at him again, "But Teyla had nothing to do with this, she is..."

"A wraith queen in human disguise!" Balktorn spat, and Lik´al nodded.

John stared at his captor in utter disbelief, then turned to the woman. "You don't actually believe this?!"

She exchanged an odd expression with Balktorn. "Actually, I do!"

John shook his head; their situation grew worse by the minute.

***

Ronon kicked the closed rear hatch of the jumper and let out a scream of frustration.

"That doesn't change what happened." Rodney replied, rubbing his neck.

"We have to get out of here!!" Ronon kicked at the rear hatch again, but it wouldn't relent.

It had been several hours since the huge man attacked them, and when Ronon woke up, Sheppard and Teyla had still been missing.

Rodney had been awake before him, and bombarded him with questions the second he started to wake up.

They had tried to open the rear hatch again, but it had apparently been sealed shut, keeping them prisoner within.

"How long has it b-" McKay started, just as the rear hatch suddenly fell open and they jumped in surprise.

***

Balktorn stood in front of the entrance, surrounded by his guards and holding Sheppard in front of him, one arm wrapped around his neck, while with the other pressing a gun to John's head. John's hands were still tied behind his back and his shirt looked shredded. He still had the metal clasp around his throat, glowing green in the front.

Rodney went chalk white and Ronon fisted his hands.

"Changed your mind yet, Sheppard?!" Balktorn hissed at his captive.

"I TOLD you, YOU ARE WRONG ON THIS!" John panted in the grip.

"And I told you that I don't believe you! Give me a name, or I start shooting your friends!"

Balktorn nodded to his guards to take their positions and McKay stared at them in horror.

John looked at his team mates, and gasped out: "He thinks Teyla is a Wraith and we were sent to destroy the thing on purpose!"

Rodney's chin almost hit the ramp and Ronon committed murder with his eyes.

"What? Are you NUTS?!" Rodney squealed.

"I see you're still set on keeping up this deception!" Balktorn hissed, then nodded to one of the guards. "Bring her!" and the guard rushed off.

Balktorn pushed John into one of his guards who resumed the same hold on him that his boss had, and Balktorn took a grey lengthy device resembling a gun out of his coat while the team exchanged confused looks.

The guard returned with Teyla in a tight grip around her throat and Rodney flinched.

She was dressed in some sort of scrubs, wearing the same metal clasp around her neck as John with the light glowing orange instead of green, and she looked at her team in worry and confusion.

Ronon tried to surge forward but hit an energy field instead, and yelled in frustration.

"You okay?" John asked, twisting around to see Teyla, and she nodded, "I am fine, just .. sluggish…"

"No wonder! They pumped you full of…argh", John hissed when his guard kicked the back of his injured leg, and he rode the pain out with a long exhale.

Balktorn raised his weapon and pointed it at Teyla. "If you truly are not what you seem, you will not mind me shooting this filthy thing!"

Ronon smashed himself into the energy field again, trying to break through it, and Rodney looked on in horror.

John tensed. "Don't do this! Balkto-" he tried harder to struggle free of the guard, but he got another kick to his injured leg for his trouble and yelled in pain instead.

Balktorn sneered. "How heart-warming, all this worry you seem to have for this one!" and added, addressing Teyla, "Tell me, would you die for _them_ as readily as they obviously would for you?!"

Teyla stepped backwards and forced her guard to move as well as Balktorn pointed the grey gun at her. She flinched in expectation of a bullet when Balktorn pulled the trigger, but instead of getting shot, she found herself illuminated in a green energy field.

She looked at her team leader in confusion: "John?!"

Their kidnapper pulled a round device, very similar to the one they had encountered on Pekoralas, from his pocket and pointed that one at Teyla as well.

John still struggled against his guard, but looked at the energy field around Teyla with a mirrored confusion. "Care to fill us in, Balktorn?"

"Oh, I will!" Balktorn activated the device and they heard a hiss coming from it. The energy field around Teyla turned from green to silver.

Balktorn pulled a blaster from his pocket and aimed it at Teyla. "Now, watch this!"

McKay went even paler and Ronon shot atom bombs through his eyes.

"DON`T DO THIS!!!" Sheppard yelled.

Balktorn ignored him, and fired.

t. b. c.


	4. Chapter 4

The wronged one – chapter 4

****

Teyla dropped to her knees with her hand pressed to a bleeding wound on her right arm.

John took a breath of relief that she wasn't killed but glowered in hatred at Balktorn all the same, while McKay threw insults at the man in record speed.

Teyla looked at Balktorn in horror, "Why have you done this?!" she gasped.

"This device…" Balktorn held the ball within sight of them, "is able to penetrate any Ancestor's protective shields. Its twin, the one you destroyed," he stared at Sheppard with an angry glare, "was a prototype of the same design!"

"You'll die for this!" Ronon growled and bared his teeth at Balktorn, feeling ready to try and break the guy's neck all over, once given the chance.

Balktorn continued, ignoring the threat, "The twin design was supposed to work against Wraith defences! It had been in the prototype status of reverse programming, but it could not be finished!"

"You couldn't have just TOLD us that??" McKay yelled at him.

Balktorn retorted with a sneer. "Perhaps not long ago, I foolishly would have, but I am pretty sure that you knew of this already!"

He turned to face Sheppard and sneered. "All too well, I'm afraid!"

"How would we know about this?" Teyla asked.

McKay scoffed. "What are you talking about?"

Balktorn snorted. "You know exactly what I mean, Wraith pet!"

McKay lost his speech at that and Ronon smashed a fist into the energy field separating him from his desired target with an angry yell. "What?" they finally said, simultaneously.

Teyla shared a confused look with John, just as Balktorn grabbed a fistful of John's shirt.

"You're secret is out!" the man said, exposing the scar on John's chest for them all to see.

John sighed and Teyla exchanged a worried look with him.

"There is an explanation for that..." she tried.

John shook his head. "Tried to tell him …"

"Oh, there is an explanation all right, so stop your attempt to conceal it!" Balktorn yelled.

John shot him a glare. "Nobody is concealing anything, Balkt-"

The guard holding John kicked against his injured leg again and John nearly fell from the man's grip when his leg threatened to give out.

"I have heard enough!" Balktorn took a deep breath.

He slapped John's shirt front. "Since he has made no attempt to deny the destruction by his own hands, and since that action has been confirmed by several witnesses testifying to that fact, I have come to the conclusion that you were sent to destroy the device before it could be finished, by order of your masters!"

"You can't be serious!" McKay yelled.

Balktorn narrowed his eyes at them. "You are hereby placed under arrest for the destruction of the developing Pekoralas defence-contraption and found guilty of Wraith worship. Both of which are punishable by death!"

The team stood dumbstruck at the accusation.

***

Elizabeth sat across from Council Kontan, who kept giving her apologetic smiles, and her second, Motalko, who was listening to some sort of radio com in his ear.

After their former communication had been cut off, she had decided to take Major Lorne and his team to investigate the incident, but still hadn't been able to get in contact with Sheppard or anyone else from his team.

The locals had told them about John and his team running from the city after John had been arrested, and they had followed their trail along the beach in a jumper, but when the trail stopped, they had found an empty space instead of Jumper One.

The shape of something very much like the underside of a jumper had been ground in the dirt though and they did find signs of a rather nasty fight, with glass apparently from a huge craft splattered across the floor, and several trees looked damaged, apparently from an onslaught of bullets.

Whatever happened here, it made her nervous and she had tried to get in contact with the Council again. Kontan had confirmed the attempted and failed arrest, but had been unable to tell her what had happened to Sheppard's team.

Motalko finally looked at her. "I have just received word that your Colonel Sheppard and his team have been taken into custody by the owner of the device that was unfortunately destroyed."

"You mean, they were kidnapped?" Elizabeth tensed in worry. "Can you give me the address?"

Motalko shook his head. "I am sorry, Dr. Weir. But this man does not have an address that we can disclose to outsiders!"

"Excuse me?!" She raised an eyebrow, "Given the situation…"

Kontan gave her a regretful glance, "The person in question has been granted secrecy as to his whereabouts, and this we cannot disclose under any – "

"He has taken my people!" Elizabeth protested, "That is a violent act against us, and I'm sure there must be some way of working around this discretion under such circumstances?"

Kontan looked at Motalko for a moment, then addressed Weir, "But according to our law, and since your Colonel Sheppard has been witnessed committing an attack against the property of a protected member of the Pekoralas community, the owner of the destroyed device has every right to execute any punishment he deems appropriate to the crime, and hold Colonel Sheppard for the duration of the trial and subsequent punishment."

"Well, forgive me, but that is unacceptable!" Elizabeth rose to her feet, "Whoever this owner is, he might be doing serious harm to somebody who is NOT of this world. Colonel Sheppard should at least be entitled to a fair trial, in the presence of his own people, until a fair verdict can be concluded!"

Motalko rose to his feet as well, "Dr. Weir, when your people were granted access to our devices, you have agreed to abide by our laws and to respect them. Colonel Sheppard, while perhaps not doing so in any hostile intent, has destroyed something of great value, and he must be held responsible for this. I am sure, if the roles were reversed, you would demand the same?"

"We would allow the accused to contact his people and try to sort this out, before throwing somebody in a jail cell and torture them to death." Elizabeth argued.

Kontan looked affronted. "Nobody has spoken of death, Dr. Weir. He may simply be questioned and might already have been released even as we speak. If he is not returned within the next seven days, we will send our Enforcers to look into it, I give you my word. Until then, our hands are bound by our laws, as the trial and justice period is set to last between five to seven days."

Elizabeth's mouth fell open, A lot of very bad things could happen in a week, especially where John and his team were concerned.

Motalko raised his hand in an attempt to calm her down. "Rest assured, Dr. Weir. No death will come to your colonel, our laws are not that barbaric for an offence of this level. But he cannot be retrieved by our Enforcers either, until he is released from the hold of his accuser."

Elizabeth stared at them in disbelief. "Then I must ask…"

"But," Kontan interrupted, her voice drawn out, "you are free to use your own search parties, it is simply ours that are not to interfere…"

Motalko pressed his mouth shut, but nodded in agreement.

Elizabeth nodded as well, "Well, I was just about to suggest that."

She turned to look at Motalko, "Just one more thing. We had an attempted dial in just before I lost contact with Colonel Sheppard's team, is there any chance you know who dialled it?"

Motalko looked at her in confusion first, but finally nodded when he remembered.

"That would have been me," he said, "I tried to contact you about the incident when it first occurred, to inform you of the following procedure, but the Colonel's escape has forced my immediate attention elsewhere and I was forced to cease communication until the situation was under control."

He gave her an apologetic smile, "Unfortunately…"

"I see," Elizabeth nodded at them both in a last greeting. Kontan and Motalko did the same.

She returned to Major Lorne and his team in the waiting hall. "Looks like we're alone on this!" she said once she had reached them.

Lorne flashed a tired smile. "Like that's any news!" he deadpanned and followed her back to the jumper. "The Daedalus would be handy right now!"

"I agree." Elizabeth nodded, "just John's luck to piss somebody off while they're on the way back to Earth!"

Lorne smirked. "And that wouldn't be any news either!"

***

"Bring them to the cell area until we have reached our destination!" Balktorn ordered.

The energy fields around Teyla and in front of the jumper were dropped and the guards trained their weapons on Ronon and Rodney, while their buddies tightened their grips on Sheppard and Teyla.

The guard who was still holding John in front of him pressed his gun under John's jaw, when Ronon tried to surge forward. "Stay back or I shoot him!"

"You should listen to that, Wraith friend!" Balktorn warned him.

Ronon looked between the guard threatening John and Balktorn pointing his own blaster at him now. "You would have been killed on Sateda for just saying that!"

John grimaced at the pain of the gun biting deeper into his skin and Ronon decided to back off. He continued to glare at Balktorn though.

The man rubbed his jaw and looked at Ronon, "as for you, I have heard about you! A runner from the Wraith, but you ´re no longer running since meeting with" – he nodded to John and Teyla, "them!" He snorted. "He cut a deal for you, huh? So you became a personal bodyguard to a Wraith pet!"

"You're wrong!" Ronon growled, fisting his hands again.

Balktorn curled his lips. "Am I? So, tell me! How did your people manage to simply _escape _from several Hive ships in the past?"

"We killed the Wraith on board!" Ronon answered flatly.

"Hey, wait a second," McKay suddenly yelped. "If that thing you just used was created by the Ancients… why hasn't it done a thing at all when I studied it? It should have reacted to me, or at least to super gene Sheppard here."

Sheppard rolled his eyes and closed them on a sigh.

Balktorn stared between him and Sheppard briefly until he returned his gaze to McKay.

"It was deactivated during the process of reprogramming for those with the Ancestor code to work on it safely with the right amount of caution." He glared at John at this, "and given its importance not to fall into enemy hands, was set to self destruct in the hands of somebody with the Wraith code in his blood."

Sheppard and McKay exchanged an odd look at this revelation. They both had the Ancient gene, but neither of them had Wraith make up. But then…somebody else did.

"I'm pretty sure I would have found any hidden signs of- " McKay pressed his mouth shut when John shot him a glare.

"Apparently, your masters were not in on the most important fact here. " Balktorn said. "You would have needed a second device to access it safely. Too bad that you won't be able to run back and tell your –"

"You are making a big mistake here, Balktorn!" Sheppard, still struggling to get free of the guard holding him in an awkward angle, which really didn't do his injured leg any favours, tried to lock eyes with his accuser.

Balktorn snorted. "I don't think so! You have ruined a great opportunity to strike back against the Wraith, and the only explanation I can think of is that you are in their service!!"

"Look…" John started but was interrupted by Teyla.

"We hate the Wraith as much as you do!" Teyla added, "And if you know of so many of our encounters with the Wraith, then you also know that the Hives we escaped from were destroyed as we did so!"

"Were they?" Balktorn glared at her. "You expect me to believe you were getting rid of your fellow green ones?"

Teyla looked at him in confusion. "My fellow…?!"

Balktorn sneered into her face. "Our genetic decoder has given us some _very _interesting facts about you. All human on the outside, but your body shows Wraith attributes."

She stared at him in shock about his knowledge of this.

He continued. "We have heard about a group of Wraith that have turned human, but reverted back. YOUR kind, isn't it?!"

"You are wrong." She said, with the same intensity as John had done but got the same sneer in reaction.

"Enough!" he hissed and before Teyla could say anything more, his hand shot into the orange glow of the metal clasp on her neck. She lost consciousness immediately.

Sheppard was about to protest, but Balktorn´s hand shot into the green glow on his own neck device and John slumped himself just as Ronon and Rodney were shut with stunners.

"Lock them in a holding cell and destroy their craft!" Balktorn bellowed at his men and turned to leave.

They looked at him with hesitation, "You sure? It might be worth something!" one of them pointed out.

Their boss considered that for a moment, but shook his head, "It's probably full of tracking devices. And make sure they are clean, too!"

Then he left.

***

They woke up in a holding cell very similar to the ones on Atlantis.

All four were now dressed in the same white outfits. Their uniforms, vests and equipment were gone. John and Teyla were still carrying their neck devices, but neither Ronon nor Rodney did.

Teyla came to, pushing herself into a sitting position next to John and hissed.

"You okay?" Sheppard asked her, looking at her in worry and offering a steadying hand.

"I am fine." She replied, nodding at him in reassurance but her face was still contorted in pain while she tried to sit up straighter.

Her injured arm had been wrapped into a pressure bandage and upon searching through the cell, her eyes focused on a box in the corner.

John followed her gaze. "Wonder what's in there!"

Ronon took the hint and opened it, "our food, water and medicine!" He took some power bars and tossed them to his team mates, then looked back into the box and sighed. "Radios and weapons are missing though."

John nodded. "Well, it's a start. At least they don't want us starved or bleeding to death," and solemnly added, "not yet anyway…!"

He grunted from the pain while he tried to straighten his injured leg out and noticed that the bandage had been refreshed as well.

"Not really the granting-the-benefit-of-doubt-trusting kind, are they?!" McKay said, popping nearly half of his power bar into his own mouth.

Sheppard shrugged, and held his free hands up, "At least they took these off!" then stared at the marks around his wrists and rubbed them. "Would love to know how though…"

"If what he has told us is true," Teyla said, "then they have been thrown back by our actions very far."

"You mean _my _action." John said with a sideways grin, blinking an eye at her, "you don't have to take blame for this!"

She smiled at him, but shook her head, "we are in this together, John." Her faces went serious again, "but if they really had been close to disable Wraith defences with this device…"

"It's not your fault!" Sheppard told her, his turn to give her a reassuring smile.

"Actually," Rodney objected, "and no offence to Teyla, but if that thing really was wired to react with a self destruct to anyone with Wraith in their DNA… then, um…" he looked at

Teyla apologetically, "it was probably started on a countdown when you touched it…"

Teyla nodded on a solemn expression, "and would have been destroyed even if John had not dropped it."

She looked at John, startled, "but if you had still held it, when… "

John nodded. "It would have ripped my hands off." He smirked at her, "so, good thing you didn't know what a flubber was!"

Teyla flashed him a brief smile before she looked at that floor. "Still, if my part in this has destroyed their…."

Ronon furrowed his brows. "I don't buy it."

Sheppard nodded, "Yeah, something's fishy here. Why have the Wraith never used this shield-breaking stuff against us before?!"

McKay nodded. "I don't know. Although, it could be that it has only now been successfully built, and only against the Ancient shield because they don't have the Wraith technology at their hand to reverse their target, the ball on the outside might have been hiding the actual device…"

Sheppard considered that for a moment, "Maybe. But here's another one. That thing he used on Teyla just now, it was the same stuff, right?! So, the one in the lab was obviously not the only working device, there's more of them."

McKay nodded, "yeah, but maybe the one in their lab had been close to completion to work against Wraith, and they have to start at zero again now…"

Teyla looked at the floor with guilt again, while the others exchanged some worried glances and went silent.

John nudged the Athosian with his shoulder, "Don't blame yourself for this, there was no way we could have known!"

She gave him an unsure smile but remained silent.

***

Major Lorne studied the HUD and still came up with nothing.

They had taken the jumper over every area that Sheppard and his team had last been spotted, as well as did a wide scan of the entire planet from orbit with the Jumper's wider range, but they all came up with the same result.

"No signs of their transmitters anywhere, Ma´am!" he said, giving Elizabeth a sombre expression. "We have scanned half the planet now; I don't think they're still on it."

Elizabeth looked at him, nodded and sighed, "Understood."

This would seriously complicate things, and she wished, not for the first time, that the Daedalus had stayed a bit longer, just a couple days would have made all the difference.

***

"Don't make me do this!" John yelled, training his P-90 onto the hissing creature in front of him. He stared at it, willing it to calm down and stay back.

It hissed and screamed at him, then charged forward, knocking him in the ground and he lost his grip on the P-90. He grabbed his knife, but the creature's hand stopped his and held it in a relentless grip that was about to snap his wrist.

He bucked under it and grunted, pushed back with all his power and knocked his head into that of the creature. Its head snapped back, and it hissed at him again. John delivered a blow to the creature's face, and tried to roll away.

The creature's claws gripped his shoulders as tightly as if it was trying to yank them out of place and started to shake him.

He cried out and squeezed his eyes shut from the pain it delivered.

Then it suddenly stopped.

His eyes opened and he saw the blurred shape of a girl, no more than 12 years of age, dipping and wringing a cloth over a dish, smiling at him when she noticed him awake, turning her head and yelling, "He's AWAKE!"

John winced at the high pitched sound assaulting his ear, and muttered, "I am now…"

The girl turned her attention back to him, smiled and pressed the still dripping wet cloth over his mouth and nose. Water entered his nostrils and down his lungs until he woke from coughing.

John gasped, there was a sudden sensation of falling and his leg slammed into the ground, followed by the rest of his body.

He screamed.

"John!" Teyla crouched down to him in worry, putting a calming hand on his shoulder.

"I …" he panted, rubbed his face and was shocked to find it wet. "I am…sorry… I was…"

He rolled onto his side and looked at Teyla in confusion. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head and he smiled at her in embarrassment. "Sorry… had a, um."

"Nightmare!" she said, and nodded. "I know. I had one too!"

"Well, that's weird…" John said, rubbing his hurting neck.

"Not at all!" McKay snapped at them, rubbing his face. "Under these circumstances… it's the stuff that nightmares are made from!"

John stared at McKay's hand, holding a half empty bottle of water. "You didn't…"

Rodney followed his eyes before he looked back at him. "You were talking in your sleep, I thought you had a fever…so, I thought…"

"You tried to drown me?" John glared at him.

"No, I just wanted to wake you up! Anyway, you're awake now, so!" Rodney closed the cap on the water bottle and put it on the floor.

"Give me that!" John grabbed the bottle to take a drink and glared at Rodney once he had swallowed a mouthful.

"Oh, that's great, blame me!!" Rodney snapped and rubbed his face again, then added angrily, "And thanks for the black eye!"

John looked at him a moment longer, then his face softened and he bit his bottom lip in embarrassment when he realized who had been the "attacking" creature.

"Uh, sorry?" he added with his trademark smirk.

McKay simply glared at him.

John turned his attention to Teyla. "You okay?"

She nodded hesitantly.

Sheppard's gaze swayed their holding cell, suddenly aware of something. "Where is Ronon?!"

"He attacked the guards again when they came to bring fresh food, and they decided he is too much of trouble to keep with us!" Rodney answered and pointed at a plate, full with fresh fruits, bread and meat, now sitting on the box with their supplies.

Sheppard stared at it, and exhaled a deep breath, "Great!"

Then he stared at Teyla, rubbing his neck, "Why don't I remember that?"

She shook her head. "I do not either".

"You both were sleeping like rocks!" McKay offered, but John wasn't satisfied. He was usually a really light sleeper. Unless they were drugged… he touched the necklace and stared at it.

"There must be some kind of sedative coming from them." Teyla agreed, touching hers as well.

Sheppard eyed McKay suspiciously. "Hey, how come they didn't put one on you?"

Rodney shrugged, "I have no…."

A sudden sharp whistle ripped them from their thoughts.

"Ronon?" Teyla beamed at him in a whisper of both, relief and confusion.

John saw Ronon grinning at him from the other side of the cell. He looked a little torn, but otherwise like a fighter coming out of the ring a winner, and wriggling a key card.

"Great timing, Chewie!" John grinned back.

"Let's get outta here!" Ronon looked behind him to make sure no guard was around before he pressed the key card into the panel in the wall to open the cell.

"Sounds like a plan!" Sheppard agreed, forcing himself to stand up.

"How did you…." McKay looked dumbfounded, but John pushed him forward, toward the exit of the holding cell area.

"Not yet, Rodney!" he hissed at him.

They walked as fast and quietly as they could. Ronon was half carrying Sheppard's weight to help him move faster while they continuously searched for an exit and constantly squeezed to hide within corners when guards were marching close by.

"So?" McKay panted after a while, "How _did_ you manage to escape?"

Ronon grinned at him, "Well, played dead dog until they loosened their grip, it was only two of them, easy to knock out."

"And they say old dogs don't learn new tricks!" Sheppard chuckled.

"Saw it in a movie." The Satedan grinned and Rodney rolled his eyes.

"Guards!" Teyla hissed, and they ducked into a corner again until the guards went past.

The good thing was, there weren't many, so it was easy to evade them.

The bad thing greeted them at the first window they came across.

"Crap!" Sheppard hissed.

They were in space, hyperspace, to be exact.

"Hey, the jumper is still here right?" John whispered, and Rodney nodded.

"Yeah, but of no use to us, since the cockpit was destroyed, remember?!" McKay replied.

"Right!" John pressed his mouth shut, trying to come up with something, when a shrill alarm suddenly roared through the ship, causing the floor underneath their bare feet to vibrate and it took all of ten seconds until they were surrounded by guards.

"Hey guys!" Sheppard grinned at them, slowly holding his hands up, and his team followed, all but Ronon who simply glared at them, "Just looking for the restroom!"

He felt the burn of a stunner blast and was unconscious before he hit the ground.

***

"Have you been able to locate Colonel Sheppard's team?" Council Kontan asked.

Motalko shook his head. "No, there have been no traces."

Kontan exhaled a breath of worry. "I am not sure if not interfering has been a wise decision."

Motalko sighed. "It is our law, Councillor. Colonel Sheppard is not above it just because he was not born here."

"I know." Kontan nodded, "but we can not afford to make an enemy out of Atlantis, especially not now with those Wraith on their way…"

Motalko glared at her. "If Sheppard had not done what he did, then our world would not face this threat as helpless as we are now! There is no reason to feel guilty…"

Kontan held up a calming hand, "Calm yourself, I did not mean that he must not be punished. But it worries me that no scanners were able to find him. What if …"

".. he was killed?" Motalko asked, his face softening, "I must admit, I find this no longer impossible; the ship that has been used as an address for the past several months has no longer been at its location either."

Kontan looked at him with wide eyes. "Then it is possible that the colonel and his team have been taken to the contractor's home world?!"

Motalko nodded and Kontan shook her head. "Then it may be too late for our help." she finally sighed, "contact Atlantis!"

"Councillor," Motalko was about to protest, but Kontan silenced him with a raised hand.

"Master Balktorn has probably violated the terms of our all alliance in that the punishment for any crime committed on Pekoralas has to be delivered on Pekoralas when he took the Accused off this world. We are no longer bound by our code of silence." she insisted. "Contact Atlantis and give them the Ring code for the contractor's home planet."

"I do not have the address, nobody does…" Motalko protested, but Kontan tilted her head at him.

"Then ask the assistant who had been working with the device. He is back in the lab, is he not?" she suggested. "I am sure he knows where to look".

Motalko stared at her for a moment, but eventually nodded.

***

The energy field hissed out of place and four guards entered the cell. Each of them training a gun on one of the team members, pulling them to their feet and positioning themselves behind them.

Balktorn stood outside, and addressed Sheppard. "You! Follow me!" with that, he turned around and walked away.

John bit his bottom lip and was just about to, when the guard behind him poked him in the back with his gun, "Move!"

Ronon nearly punched the guy, but his own guard wrapped an arm around his neck and placed his gun under his chin while the ones behind Teyla and McKay threatened to shoot them.

"Ronon," John shook his head and Ronon settled for attempting to kill the guard manhandling Sheppard with a look instead.

He kept watching his friend until he vanished out of sight.

***

to be continued


	5. Chapter 5

The Wronged One - chapter 5

***

"Lik´al, the test results are completed."

Her young assistant pointed at the monitor and Lik´al studied it, but looked up when Balktorn entered with their captive.

"Colonel!" she said, walking towards him with a smile.

He nodded on a grunt, but didn't reply.

"You can leave us now!" She said to Balktorn, who hesitated, but then nodded and did.

Once he was gone and the door closed, she turned to face Sheppard.

"I heard you tried to leave us," she said, smiling at his disgruntled expression, "Don't worry, Colonel. I am not the one you need to be afraid of."

Her assistant looked at Sheppard, but avoided his eyes as soon as he focused on her.

He looked confused, took in a deep breath and finally broke his silence. "So, what _is_ in store for us?"

"Your friends will be released once the Wraith one is killed," Lik´al said. "I think that should be the most logical way to redeem yourself!"

"We will not leave without her!"

Lik´al smirked. "Then you are willing to die for something you claim not to worship?!"

Sheppard's eyes shot daggers at her. "_She_ is not a Wraith! And I will _not_ let you kill her!"

She smiled broader and closed the distance between them until they were eye to eye, her being almost as tall as he was. "You should know, the others have vowed to this already, you will simply do what must be done, which is what you always do, and we all go our separate ways afterwards!"

He grimaced in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him, "Oh, you will be the one to do the honour. In order to save the others, she must die!"

"Never gonna happen!"

She pressed her hand into the green glow of his neck device and stepped back with a satisfied smirk as he started to loose consciousness. "We will see!"

His eyes fluttered in the struggle to keep open, but eventually dropped shut, and she guided his slumping body over to an exam table. She pushed his shoulders down until he sat on the surface, dropping into unconsciousness all the way.

"Tikana, please help me over here while I prepare the Phasquat!" she said to her assistant, and the younger woman, who still had been studying the monitors on the other side of the room, nodded and joined her at the table.

Tikana sprawled Sheppard onto the table, secured his wrists and ankles and Lik´al attached the cables to his chest and head to connect him with her computer, entering command codes.

She saw Tikana looking at the man with seeming regret while her assistant set the intravenous line into Sheppard's arm.

"You are not having sympathies for his kind, do you?" Lik´al asked, eyeing Tikana with a quirked eyebrow, while she prepared a syringe with the blue liquid.

The younger woman looked at her startled and quickly shook her head. "Of course not," she said quickly and returned to her own computer.

Lik´al smirked.

She returned her attention back to John and injected the drug, then grabbed the unconscious man's chin, "this should be interesting."

She delivered a pat to his cheek with a smug grin before she sat down at her computer again.

* * *

Teyla woke with a start, bolted upright and struggled to get enough air into her lungs. Her hair and body were wet with sweat and she took in her surroundings in a panicked gaze.

"Teyla," Ronon sat next to her. "Water?" he asked, offering her a bottle.

She shook her head but changed her mind and nodded. She took the water and took gratefully a mouthful.

"Easy!" Ronon said, rubbing her back. "Bad dream again?"

She nodded slowly and handed the bottle back to him. "Thank you!" She dropped back to the bench that served as a bed and released a sigh.

"I think you got some infection." Rodney suggested. "Maybe you should take some of the pills!"

Teyla shook her head again. "They do not fight infection, they are only against headaches and pain in general." She looked at them with uncertainty, "do they not?"

"I don't know." Ronon admitted, giving her an apologetic smile.

"Besides… I am sure there is some kind of drug coming out of this," she rested her hand on the necklace she still wore, "and Dr. Beckett always said it could be dangerous to mix drugs you do not know!"

"He's right with that!" Rodney's shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry. None of this should be happening!! I should have noticed something about the damn thing before handing it over as useless, I should have b-"

She shook her head. "Do not blame yourself! We all should have been more cautious!"

Ronon patted her leg. "You should get some rest."

She sighed. "Easier said than done." She gave him a tired smile but closed her eyes nevertheless.

Eventually, sleep did claim her again after all.

She didn't even wake when guards entered to deliver stunner blasts to Rodney and Ronon, and removed her from the cell to transfer her to another.

****************

Balktorn entered the lab and looked at Lik´al with anticipation.

"Well?" he said, startling her while she studied the data she had collected from Sheppard's body scan. "Where is Sheppard?" he added, when he didn't see the captive.

"Secure area, as ordered!" she answered.

He looked at her in confusion, but quickly hid it and nodded.

She ignored it and grinned in happiness. "I have some good news."

"Share!" he said, following her gaze onto the monitor.

She pointed at several streaming lines of data. "Colonel Sheppard has the Ancestor code."

"I knew that already." Balktorn shrugged, looking annoyed. "He would not have been able to fly their craft otherwise, and the sensor would not have reac-!"

She glared at him. "Will you let me finish?!" he stared at her and she added, "That is not all I found. He has been fed on, multiple times, by a Wraith."

"Not uncommon for a Wraith worshipper." Balktorn was still not impressed.

Lik´al blew out a breath of frustration. "_But _he has traces of metamorphosis in his blood stream as well," she added.

Balktorn leaned forward to get a better look at the data. "He's a Wraith, too?! Then the queen has fed on-?"

"No!" Lik´al shook her head. "He is human, well, a human with the Ancestor code, _but_ he had been turned into something else once, though only temporarily. It was very hard to detect, since it has nearly completely been wiped from his system."

"These new Atlantians do experiments even on their own?!" Balktorn looked at her in disgust.

She shook her head again. "I am not so sure if this was actually done by them. There is still scar tissue on his arm, which looks like created by a feeding hand."

She held up her own hand when he was about to protest again. "And before you suggest it, the Wraith who reward their pets always go for the chest, offers more of a rush or something!"

She turned to stare at the monitor again, whipping on her heels. "No, this scar was left during a fight, and I think whatever creature that was, it was what infected him as well!"

"How is that good news?" Balktorn asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Because I was able to reactive it!" she grinned.

* * *

"Don't make me do this!" John yelled, raising his P-90 at the creature.

She flung herself forward and knocked him into the ground, gripping him tightly, her feeding hand starting to break the skin on his arm…

John woke with a start, staring at the wall of the cell and breathing heavily. Rubbing his shoulder, he turned around and flinched back in startled surprise.

He was faced with Ellia, the formerly friendly Wraith girl turned hostile creature, wearing a necklace much like his own, with a dark red light slowly blinking on it, probably indicating "dangerous!"

He looked around, there were no guards nearby, and nothing separated her from him.

She approached him and he bit his bottom lip nervously.

***************

Balktorn tensed, and narrowed his eyes at Lik´al in anger. "He will turn into another creature, on this ship?"

Lik´al looked startled for a second, then shook her head heavily, "Oh no!"

"Then how will this aff-?"

A beeping sound nearby blared and she looked at a monitor connected with the sound, then turned to smile at him. "The subjects are awake."

"And what will happen now?" He asked, annoyed at the interruption.

She walked over to a large red sign covering half the wall, pressed a panel next to it, and the red sign turned into a transparent window, showing Sheppard and the female captive sitting on the benches in an adjoined room. They stared at each other.

"You are about to see!" she added with a grin.

Balktorn walked over to her and stared through the observing window.

* * *

"You're dead!" John said to the creature Ellia had turned into, staring at her.

She shouldn't be here. Ronon had shot her and not only that, he had actually shot her dead.

Unless it wasn't Ellia, but another Wraith experiment gone wrong. Now they had locked him with the thing in one cell and he didn't even have a weapon to defend himself.

Or maybe he had! He had not seen it before, but his 9mm sat at the foot of his bench.

"_Your friends will be released once the Wraith one is kille__d." _A voice said in his head.

Unfortunately, the gun was just as close to her as it was to him, and she had seen it when he did.

Great! He sighed, and pressed his mouth shut again.

He glared at her when she approached him further, his heart starting to race. "Getting hungry already?!"

Had she been given the same offer? Kill him, get free?

Her hand reached for the gun on his bench. He stopped her from reaching it with a kick to her chest that sent her flying across the cell and he managed to snatch the gun into his own hold.

Ellia looked at him from the floor as if his action had hurt her feelings.

His injured leg throbbed from the kick he had used it for, and he straightened it slowly while waving with the gun. "You stay in your corner, and I stay in mine!" he said to the creature, who simply stared back at him. "No reason for the captured to turn on each other, right?"

"John?" Ellia pushed herself back to her feet and John tensed in surprise when she locked her reptilian eyes with his.

Ellia had not been able to talk at this stage, and she had never called him by name. He wasn't even sure if she ever knew it in the first place.

"_Your friends will be released once the Wraith one is killed", _the voice said_, "I think that should be the most logical way to redeem yourselves!" _

Easy enough! Kill this thing; get Ronon and Rodney out of here…

He trained the gun on her when she made another attempt in his direction, and she froze where she stood.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked, her expression confused.

There was something off with her voice.

"_We will not leave without her!" _

Had he said that? It puzzled John to a point he could not explain and it frustrated him.

"Just keep your distance and both of us are gonna be fine!" he snapped.

****************

Balktorn narrowed his eyes, and turned to his friend. "Why IS he doing this?"

Lik´al watched the two on the other side as well, then faced Balktorn, "I tapped into parts of his memory of the original experience of his transformation and introduced a virus that acts as a lucid delusion of it."

Balktorn stared at her with confusion, "But why? What good is that going to do us?"

She grinned again and continued, "I connected their liquid controllers for his to react in the presence of her genetically altered body with Wraith chemicals, so that he will recognize her as merely the creature that has brought this fate upon him. At the same time, the recognition of her actual identity has been overridden with this one."

Balktorn slowly nodded as realization settled in, and he watched their captive with newfound curiosity, "Visualization of a traumatic memory as an actual happening right now?"

Lik´al nodded. "I have found high traces of negative reaction in combination with this memory, even aggressive. He was promised freedom for his friends once the Wraith threat is removed. This should trigger his action."

"He doesn't view her as a thr-!"

She smirked. "The female will remain the same on the outside, but her controller is programmed to send data to his own, highly suggesting her being the creature that once attacked and turned him, urging him to remove the threat she poses."

Balktorn watched their captive through the window and flashed Lik´al a twisted grin. "So, he will end up killing her?"

She tilted her head. "Unless she kills him first, but yes, that is the idea!"

"So, what is he waiting for?!" Balktorn asked when the stalemate between the two supposed enemies continued.

Lik´al shook her head and frowned. "I do not know. He should have killed her by now!"

*****************

Teyla flinched when John startled away from her.

Her gaze followed his, scanning the room, then landed on the small device sitting at the foot of his bench. It was one of their 9mm handguns.

He looked from the gun to her, perhaps asking her to pick it up and hand it to him, something keeping him from doing so himself. She had noticed that the bright green of the light on his neck device had turned into a blinking violet and wondered if it was perhaps another drug or a mental controller. But who had put the gun there?

She reached for it but got a kick in the chest that sent her flying across the room.

Teyla gasped from the floor, panting and looked at John in shock.

He glared at her with hostility, favoured his injured leg after both had connected with her chest and got hold of the gun.

"You stay in your corner, and I stay in mine!"

Her team leader waved the gun as if she was a threat to him. "No reason for the captured to turn on each other, right?"

"John?" she pushed herself back to her feet, but froze when he trained the weapon on her, warning her to stay where she was. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.

"Just keep your distance and both of us are gonna be fine!" he snapped, pointing the gun at her, but not firing.

She knew better this time than to approach him again and decided to sit down on her bench instead, locking her eyes with his. "They must have done something to you!"

He released a hard breath. "Yeah," he pointed upwards at the ceiling and snorted. "They locked me up with you and are probably chewing on popcorn right now, waiting to enjoy the captive's death match here."

Teyla looked up as well. A tiny black box sat in the corner of the ceiling. "I would never harm you." She sighed. "Your necklace is blinking. I thought…"

John glared at her, "So is yours, guess we're both fair game now!"

She looked at her own necklace and only now noticed the blinking red light.

"Perhaps these necklaces have started to transmit information," she wondered and flinched when she looked up to see him staring at her with a shocked expression on his face for a long enough time to worry her.

He suddenly jumped to his feet, still staring at her. Then he suddenly rubbed his temples furiously and she flinched again when he suddenly screamed, "NO! That will never happen!"

"John?" Teyla asked, getting really worried.

******************

Ronon kicked the door of their cell and a spark of energy field hissed in reply.

Rodney was just about to snark at the futile attempt, when the field flashed out of existence and a guard entered, only one this time, his gun was still attached to the belt on his uniform, not raised.

He carried a tray with food and water and set it on the floor, then turned around to leave.

Ronon and Rodney exchanged a look at the man's carelessness and Ronon surged forward, not wasting a moment to take advantage of it. He snatched the man's gun and the guard gasped when Ronon grabbed him by the throat with one hand, pressed him into the wall and held the gun to his head.

Ronon hissed in his ear, "Teyla and Sheppard! Where are they?!" he tightened his grip and lifted the guard off his feet by half an inch.

The guard choked and Ronon eased his grip only enough to allow him the breath to talk.

"Master Balktorn has given allowance to his researcher Lik´al to use your friends as test subjects ….!" The guard choked out.

Ronon smashed the guard's head into the wall with an angry roar and Rodney had trouble to keep him from choking the man to death.

*************

"_We will not leave without her!" _

Not leave without whom? John had a name on his tongue but couldn't get it out.

The Wraith creature sat down on the opposite bench, locking her reptilian eyes with John's again. "They must have done something to you!" it said.

Go figure! Still… he knew that voice….

He sighed at the ceiling in frustration.

A small black box sat in the corner, blinking itself and perhaps recording them.

John snorted out loud. "Yeah." It would fit the bill with creeps.

He looked at the Wraith creature again and pointed at the thing, "they locked me up with you and are probably chewing on popcorn right now, waiting to enjoy the captive's death match here."

The Wraith looked up as well. "I would never harm you." She sighed. "Your necklace is blinking. I thought…"

Sure enough, it did. John had wondered about that himself.

But then, it wasn't the only one, so he glared at her. "So is yours, probably means we're both fair game now!"

He still tried figuring out where that voice fit in. It didn't seem to fit Ellia at all.

"Perhaps these necklaces have started to transmit information."

Transmitting necklace… something sounded familiar with that.

_Something silver reflected__ from a sandy floor, "hey, what's this?!" _his own voice asked_._

"_I lost this years ago" Not!E__llia´s voice said, and her human hand took the necklace from his own. _

John stared at the creature as her words caused a flash of memories.

_The face of a beautiful woman smiled at him as he put it around her neck. _

_Another flash of this woman was smiling at him, her long bronze hair waving around her head as she danced in choreographic perfection around him in the Atlantis gym, twirling two fighting sticks with both her hands, approaching him with playful anticipation and encouragement; his own hands holding the same sticks, blocking hers. _

Taylor, no... Taylar…

Another memory flashed. _"I'd love a good cup of tea,_" his own voice repeated inside his head. _"See? We're practically friends already!"_

_The woman smiled at him, her brown eyes turning from hostile to warm. _

TEYLA!

_Brown eyes__ sparked with demand of respect. "I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan!" _

"_We will not leave without her!" _

"_Teyla is part Wraith?!" _his own surprised voice boomed inside his head.

Other voices joined in quick succession.

"_The one you call Teyla, she __is clearly related to the Wraith."_

"_You are charged with the crime of Wraith worship.__" _

"_Your friends will be released once the Wraith one is killed." _

"_I think that should be the most logical way to redeem yourselves!" _

"_We will not leave without her!" _

"_You will do the honour!" _

"_Never gonna happen!" _

John jumped to his feet and stared at Ellia. She should not be here. She could not be here.

He saw her die.

_Rono__n´s blaster shot a red wave at her; her dead body lay on the ground. _

She was dead.

"_You okay?" Ronon´s voice asked and John saw him__self holding a bleeding arm up. "Yeah…" _

He rubbed his temples.

"_The one you call Teyla, she __is clearly related to the Wraith."_

"_You will do the honour!" _

"_Never gonna happen!"_ he heard himself saying inside his head again and yelled it out loud. "NO! That will never happen!"

This was a trick, nothing but a twisted trick, all just a trick….

"John?" Teyla´s voice broke through his thoughts.

He stared back at the creature that should not be here and Teyla´s features replaced the Wraith creature, blue and green skin became bronze, ruffled black hair became brown and long, reptilian eyes became brown human eyes and they stared back at him with confusion.

"Teyla?" he whispered.

Her red blinking collar went back to glow in orange, his own collar returned to green.

Teyla´s shocked features turned into a relieved smile and she nodded. "Yes."

****************

Ronon had the guard still pinned to the wall in a choke hold, the man's head turning red from lack of oxygen. "Where did they take Sheppard and Teyla?!" he spat at him again.

Rodney slammed his hand on Ronon´s shoulder, trying to pry him off the man. "Don't kill him yet, how are we supposed to get out of here without him!??"

Ronon didn't ease his grip. "We have his blaster. We can shoot our way through!"

"Will you just let him breathe?" Rodney hissed. "We're no good to Sheppard and Teyla when the others show up and kill us when they find a dead body!"

The guard stared at Rodney in shock and McKay shrugged," or do you want him to kill you?!"

The guard shook his head, and McKay looked at Ronon again, "He knows where they are, he can lead the way, or do you actually know where to go?!"

Ronon glared at the guard, his mouth twisted in an obvious attempt to fight an inner struggle, but he finally eased his grip on the man, allowing the guard's feet to meet the ground and let him gasp in air again, but still pointed his weapon at him, ready to shoot.

The guard coughed and looked at them both, "They're in the laboratory safety cell." He looked at Ronon nervously before he continued, "the process of the Phasquat trial has already begun. Once completed with the Wraith tainted female's death at the hand of your Colonel Sheppard himself, you will be redeemed and set free."

They stared at him in disbelief.

******************

"What just happened here?" Balktorn fumed at Lik´al, who simply stared at the observing window in utter astonishment.

Their captive had not killed the female as he was supposed to, but instead had just stood there, looking like a crazy man and screamed his refusal to do what he should have done, then had addressed her by her real name, which should not have been possible at this stage during the experiment.

"I, he should…I do not understand! He was fully adapted to the drug!" Lik´al insisted. "I do not understand how he managed to override it!"

"He was able to override the override?" Balktorn asked, and snorted in disgust. "Well, looks like you didn't do a very good job here!"

"I am sorry, it should have worked!" Lik´al said and went over to her console. "I guess it is time for the failsafe!"

She pushed a red button.

* * *

John looked at his friend with shame. "Teyla, I am… I am so sorry, these things must have…"

Teyla touched her collar with a nod and was about to answer, but flinched in surprise when it suddenly started to blink red in faster succession, one digit staying put while the others

resumed their blinking until a second digit joined, then a third.

She looked up at him in alarm, and noticed that his was starting to do the same. "John!"

* * *

"He would never do that!" Rodney protested and Ronon added, "No way!"

The guard took another gasp of air before he said, "Lik´al has injected him with a drug, making him see anyone else connected to the treatment in his immediate presence as an enemy from his past! Your female has been the target subject to this treatment."

McKay exhaled hard. "Great! Hallucinations, that's what this trip needed! He's going to try and kill us before we can even enter his cell!"

"You can not!" The guard said. "That part of the ship is locked for everyone but Lik´al and Balktorn!"

"Then what good are you to us?" Ronon pressed his gun to the man's head again.

The guard swallowed hard. "I can lead you to the observation room in which this experiment is being overseen."

"Waste of time!" Ronon declared. "Where's Sheppard?!"

The guard swallowed again. "Lik´al will be able to kill them both through their controllers on their neck with the push of a button, which she also might do when the experiment does not go as she pleases. It would kill everyone in the room!"

Ronon glared at the guard with hostility, "How do we stop this?!"

The guard continued, "The observation room is where Balktorn and Lik´al are at this moment until the Phasquat trial has been completed."

McKay crossed his arms and snorted. "And then what?! Knock nicely and ask them to stop?!"

Ronon tightened his grip on the man's throat again. "Get us to Sheppard!"

The guard shook his head, "There is no way into their cell. The area is locked for those without the Ancestor code, so you", he looked at Ronon nervously, "can not enter unless in the presence of somebody that possesses it, and I… ", the guard eyed the gun on him nervously again, "do not."

Rodney looked triumphant, "Well, that's good news, because I _do_!!"

Ronon grabbed the guard by the man's collar and yanked him into a run. "Lead the way!"

to be continued

**A/N**: Thanks to everybody who still keeps up with this story, especially to those who reviewed and/or put up a story alert. I hope you still enjoy it. :-)


	6. Chapter 6

The wronged one - chapter 6

***

John stared at his own now red blinking collar and yanked on it when Teyla´s suddenly snapped open.

John raised an eyebrow and pointed at her now dull collar. "How did you do that?"

She shook her head. "I do not know…" She reached for it and ripped it off, staring at it in disgust before trying to yank John's off of him.

His own collar opened without warning, died and he let it join Teyla´s on the floor.

***

Balktorn was furious, "Why is the failsafe not working?!"

Lik´al shook her head and frowned. "I swear, I do not know! They must be malfunctioning!"

"I guess I just have to do this my way then!" he hissed and pushed her into the wall before he sped out of her lab. Lik´al gasped, pushed herself up and looked straight into the barrel of a gun.

"Tikana?!" she asked, surprised to find her assistant holding a gun into her face.

"You knew this, did you not?" Tikana said with cold eyes, "you erased the results, so nobody else would see what you have done!"

"These people are resp-" Lik´al started but Tikana shook her head.

"I am not talking about them, I am talking about you! I knew we should have never taken you back!"

""What are you doing?!"

Tikana took aim. "What should have been done a long time ago!"

"Wait!" Lik´al protested, holding her hands up, but the gun was fired and Lik´al fell unceremoniously to the ground.

***

John sat down on the bench and still stared at Teyla. "Listen…" he sighed, struggling with the rest of the sentence, "…about earlier," he paused again, ashamed of what he had done to her, even worse yet, of what he had almost done next.

She looked at him in confusion, but then realized he had meant the kick. "Give it no further thought." She smiled at him, "after all, you have been under the influence of…"

"Yeah," he flashed an abashed smile at her, and with a frown, he added, "Yeah, I just wish you wouldn't constantly be on the receiving end of my alien creature features…"

"This is not another one of your movie references?" she rolled her eyes with a smile, and he smirked at her.

"How is your arm?" he asked, pointing towards her battered looking bandage. "Can you fight?"

They both jumped to their feet in surprise when a loud gunshot bellowed and their cell door opened on a hiss.

***

Rodney, Ronon, and their kidnapped guard had almost reached their target, when the guard halted and pointed at a panel next to a door in front of Rodney, "here, you must press the panel."

Rodney tried to catch his breath, held his side and panted, "Okay, okay, just gimme a minute!"

"Open it!" Ronon growled at him, getting impatient.

McKay scowled at him and slammed his hand onto the panel.

Nothing happened.

"McKay!" Ronon hissed.

"I'm trying!" Rodney yelled, waving and pressing his hand over the panel in a fury. The door remained closed to them.

"It's not working! Why is it not working?" he yelled at the guard.

The man simply stared at him and shrugged his shoulders, "It worked the last time it was used," he said. "I told you that you cannot enter this area without the Ance-"

"I _have_ the damn gene, and not only since yesterday!" McKay snapped, and ran his hand over the panel again. "Is this thing broken?"

Ronon yelled in frustration, bared his teeth and pressed the guard's blaster to the man's head again. "What did you?"

"I have done nothing!" The guard insisted. "If he were of the Ancestor blood, he would be able to-"

Rodney was about to snap at him again when the door suddenly hissed open and McKay was literally overrun by Balktorn, both hitting the floor.

Ronon and the guard jumped back in surprise, but Ronon quickly trained his gun on the man who had kidnapped them.

The huge guy kicked a cursing Rodney off him, his face turning red with anger when he saw his own guard standing next to Ronon, who was now pointing a gun at him.

"What is this?! What are you doing with these people in this area, Kortal?" he demanded.

Ronon stepped behind him, grinned at the man, and trained his blaster at their kidnapper's head. "We escaped!" he pressed the gun into Balktorn´s temple, "where are Teyla and Sheppard?!" Balktorn tried to get up but Ronon pushed him back down with a punch to the face. "Where are they?!" he repeated on a dangerous growl and Balktorn looked at him more annoyed than scared.

"They should be nearby," their guard said instead, and pointed at the door Balktorn had just come out of, "since this is the observation room!"

Balktorn grinned at Ronon through bloody teeth. "Do you actually think you have a chance against me in a fight, you upstart?"

"Who knows?!" Ronon growled. "Not really interested in one with you!" he pulled the trigger but Balktorn kicked out at Ronon´s weapon arm with more strength than seemed possible from his current position, averting the bullet to hit the wall instead of him and the gun dropped from Ronon´s grip, sliding across the ground.

Ronon managed to catch it before it was out of reach, just as another door behind them hissed open.

Balktorn jumped to his feet, pushed McKay into Kortal and hauled himself into Ronon. He tried to pry the gun from Ronon´s relentless grip while pinning him to the floor but found the back of his own head suddenly the target of another gun and froze.

"DON'T` MOVE!!"

Sheppard suddenly showed up behind him, his 9mm pressed into his enemy's head, and one of the metal clasps snapped shut around Balktorn´s neck, starting to blink orange, while Ronon snatched the gun from Balktorn´s no longer struggling hand, pointing it between his eyes.

"Sheppard! Good timing!" Ronon grinned at his friend.

John grinned back and nodded to Rodney as well. "You guys okay?"

"You and your creature will not get off this ship alive, Sheppard!" Balktorn threatened, but flinched when John pressed the gun deeper into the skin of his head.

"Want to find out if there are actually still real bullets in here?!" John hissed back at him.

"There are," A female voice suddenly said and John tensed when he recognized her as the lab assistant. She walked towards him. "They had meant it for you to use it against the female."

Teyla tensed and the woman smiled at her friendly, "I am glad that this did not happen."

Lik´al´s assistant walked towards Balktorn and pointed her gun at him as well.

"You opened the door!" Sheppard said, raising an eyebrow, and she nodded.

"Tikana!" Kortal said, gasping. "You know that interfering with the Phasquat trial of Wraith worshippers is punishable by death!"

She shook her head and looked at John with sparkling eyes. "I have not stopped it. He was able to stop the Phasquat himself, and they are not…"

The guard stared at John in disbelief, "Impossible, the Phasquat is...."

"…is what exactly?!" John asked, confused.

"The Phasquat," the woman replied, looking at him, "is the trial during which you were supposed to redeem your crime of worship and destruction of our property by eliminating the one you supposedly worship," she nodded to Teyla, "your female with the Wraith attributes."

"Great way to redeem somebody," McKay spat, "making him kill one of his best friends for something they didn't even do!"

Balktorn snorted. "She is a Wraith, our scans have shown as much!"

"Actually…, "Tikana started but was interrupted when Teyla could no longer keep control of her anger.

"I am _not_a Wraith!" Teyla spat at Balktorn. She kicked him in the groin and added a punch to his face when the hated man crouched down from the kick with a grunt of pain.

Sheppard involuntarily grimaced despite his own hatred for the man, but then smirked. "Well, can't say he didn't deserve that!"

Teyla smirked back at him. "How was this trial stopped?" she asked the woman.

The young female continued her tale, looking at John with admiration. "John Sheppard found some sort of failsafe of his own, linking some keywords with the correct memory of your identity," she said to Teyla, "something you said to him must have triggered one of them. This in combination with the continued presence of your own voice and the restored memory of the already occurred death to the supposed Wraith target convinced the device that the execution of the given command has been completed. "

Everybody looked surprised at John, and John smirked. "I had a feeling they were going to mess with my head once I told them where to stick their _offer_!"

Tikana looked at John again, "Lik´al initiated a self destruct, meaning to kill you both, but I was able to shut it down before that happened."

Sheppard and Teyla exchanged a shocked glance before he said to the woman. "Uh, thanks!"

As she nodded with a smile, McKay frowned at her. "Why?!"

He saw Sheppard glaring at him and cringed. "Sorry, but…" he locked eyes with the woman again, "Not to sound ungrateful, but … why did you help?"

"The device let us see the past of the observed subjects with their Wraith encounters through a recording of their subconscious mind, and they did not speak of worship." she said.

Teyla tilted her head on a sigh. "The nightmares!"

Tikana nodded again. "I apologise for my part in making you relive them. Lik´al knew this, but decided to erase the results. I believe, on Balktorn´s command! I could no longer sit by and let this hap-"

"LIES!!" Balktorn tried to jump back to his feet but froze when Ronon pressed the barrel of his gun between the man's eyes, and John added more pressure with his own 9mm.

"You will not get far once we have reached our planet. Wraith worship is punished with death there!" he threatened, "and you have just destroyed the only chance at compassion you were given, Sheppard!"

"You call that compassion?" Sheppard hissed, "How about you try to actually _listen_ to us rather than finding us guilty against proof or demanding the death of an innocent, Balktorn?!"

"None of these people are guilty of worshipping the Wraith!" Tikana approached Balktorn, and stared down at him, "and there is no point in lying to us any longer, Balktorn!"

She held up a syringe of transparent liquid into his face. "Do you recognize this?"

Balktorn stared at the syringe, then at Lik´al´s assistant with annoyance, "My medicine, what are you doing with this?"

Tikana shook her head, "It is no medicine, Balktorn. Lik´al had given this to me to find the formula so she could duplicate it. Some very interesting fact came out of this research!" She stepped back and pointed at Balktorn. "He was genetically altered himself."

Kortal stared at her with wide eyes. "What does that mean?"

"It means nothing! She is lying!" Balktorn yelled furiously, trying to get up again, but John and Ronon pushed him down with ease, his head stuck between their weapons.

Ronon punched him again and Balktorn glared daggers at the grinning Satedan.

"Sucks to be on the receiving end of this, doesn't it?!" Sheppard quipped at him, yanking the collar around Balktorn´s neck enough for the man to start choking. "It's about time you got a taste of some of this yourself, you hypocritical bastard!"

Ronon and him hauled Balktorn to his feet and pushed him into the cell behind them.

The man caught himself before falling and straightened with a glare at the pointed guns. "My guards will kill you for this!"

Sheppard shrugged. "Well, we just have to keep you in here long enough for them to see what happens without your injections!"

Balktorn narrowed his eyes at Tikana, "you are committing murder if you deny me access to my medicine!"

"I do not think so," Tikana kept her features emotionless. "It will merely allow your body to resume its original form."

"Yeah, and you want to know what my gut says?" Sheppard added with a smug grin. "Once your guards see you for what you really are, they will not be so happy with you!"

Ronon smirked as well, "or they just find your dead body, we don't really care!"

John was about to slam his hand into the glow of the device when he and Ronon were suddenly assaulted with stunner blasts in the back and fell to the ground.

Balktorn looked down at them in surprise, then looked up and smugly grinned at the arrival of his guards. The guard that had shot Sheppard kicked his boot into John's ribs before he dragged him by the scruff of his scrub shirt out of the cell.

"Well done, my friends!" Balktorn grinned and yanked on his collar. "Get this thing off me and bring them to th-"

"We are not taking orders from genetic garbage, Balktorn!" One of the guards snapped at him.

The huge guy went red with anger. "You will pay for this insolence, Havnek!"

"But do not worry yourself," Havnek replied, "if the words of the suspected traitor Tikana prove untrue, you will be released!" he pressed the panel to shut the door, hiding Balktorn´s furious features from them.

The blue stream across the windows suddenly turned black and a muddy green and washed-out blue looking planet came within sight.

"We have arrived on Boltera," Havnek said, "be sure to secure them in sector 500!" he added with a nod to the other guards and they started to haul the unconscious team away.

"Not that one!" Havnek put his hand on the shoulder of the guard about to tug John along, and the guard froze. "Bring him in sector 511."

The guard nodded at him and dragged John towards a different corridor.

***

"UNSCHEDULED OFF-WORLD ACTIVATION!"

Elizabeth Weir rushed out of her office and into the control room at Chuck's shout, just as the last symbol ran around the Atlantis gate and the event horizon shot out, establishing the connection.

"Do we have an IDC yet?!" she asked, her body tense while she stared at the blue puddle.

Chuck shook his head. "Not y-"

Before Chuck could finish the denial, the code they had given the people from Pekoralas lit up on the screen. "It's somebody from Pekoralas!"

A voice crackled soon there after, "Dr. Weir? This is Motalko, second council of Pekoralas. Are you receiving me?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Maybe they changed their minds? Patch me through!"

The gate tech nodded and gave her a sign to start talking.

"This is Dr. Weir. Yes, we are receiving you! Do you have any news for us, Councillor?"

"We do indeed, Dr. Weir," the council in second confirmed, "Council Kontan has categorized the contractor responsible for the abduction of your Colonel Sheppard and his team as a traitor to our terms, since he has taken the Colonel off our grounds, which no longer binds us to our code of silence about his contact locations."

Elizabeth breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, we are very glad to hear that." then, realizing what else she might have insinuated, added, "I mean, not that he betrayed your terms, but …"

"Please. There is no need to apologize, Dr. Weir," Motalko interrupted.

"Still. I didn't mean to offend," she offered nevertheless. "Does this contractor of yours have a name?"

There was a short pause before Motalko replied. "He was known to us as Master Balktorn. It is possible that this was a false name though, as he was very protective about his own person."

Elizabeth decided to make the best of the sudden openness. "Can you tell me about the nature of the destroyed device he owned?" If the walls of silence had suddenly crumbled, she would do her best to get as much information as possible out of it. "What exactly was it that Colonel Sheppard has destroyed?" she asked further.

Motalko hesitated again. "I am currently not at liberty to disclose more than the contractor's location, I am sorry, Dr. Weir." Elizabeth sighed with disappointment, but after another brief pause, he added, "but perhaps this would be best discussed with Council Kontan. If you wish, I will schedule a meeting for you and the Council?"

"I would appreciate that, Councillor." Elizabeth agreed. "You said you can tell us where our people are currently held?" she asked finally.

"No," Motalko said and Elizabeth's face fell. "But I can give you the symbols to the world where Balktorn will most likely bring them to, his home world Boltera," the second council added. "The ship that had been used as the last known location has recently left our area, so we assume he took it into space again." Motalko sighed. "There is no guarantee, I'm afraid, but I hope it will give you a starting point."

"We're receiving a transmission." Chuck confirmed when the symbols were sent.

"That is very helpful to us, thank you, Councillor!" Elizabeth said with an appreciative nod, though Motalko could not see it.

"You are welcome. I hope you will find him in time, Dr. Weir." Motalko said, sounding genuinely worried, which surprised Elizabeth a little, since he had seemed so reluctant to help out the last time they had spoken.

The gate shut down again and Elizabeth studied the symbols. "Transfer these to Major Lorne's team immediately. And have Dr. Beckett ready his medical team to join them!" she ordered.

Chuck nodded. "Yes Ma´am"

***

Ice-cold wetness woke John with a start and he spat out some of the water. Cold air struck his upper body and John lifted his head in confusion. He was standing up, his body was bare from the waist up and his arms secured to the ceiling.

He yelled in both surprise and shock when something sharp bit him across the shoulder blades without warning.

"HOW?!" a voice behind him screamed.

John flinched involuntarily at the volume and he recognized the voice as familiar but couldn't put a name to it, yet.

"TELL US HOW!" the voice yelled.

John bit through the pain of another lash and gritted out. "Who. Are. You?!"

He tried to turn enough to see who the voice belonged to, but all he got in return was a kick in the kidneys that flipped him back to his former position.

"Tell us how you did this!!" the voice demanded.

"How I did what?!" John asked, confused.

"How you helped them to walk among humans!" the voice said.

He winced when another strike bit him sideways across his back and he was tossed forward, his body jerking violently in response. John tried to ride out the pain, but decided to talk just enough to give familiar-but-strange voice something to keep whomever from whipping him again. "What…are…you…talking about?!"

His tormentor finally moved around to face him.

John gasped in surprise when he recognized her as the laboratory head, or whatever they called them here. A bandage was wrapped around her shoulder and her formerly ever present smug grin replaced with a seriously pissed off face. She couldn't have been the only one in the room though…

She smirked at him. "You should consider yourself lucky. This form of crude punishment is usually only dealt to people who committed a lesser offence. But since the more sophisticated means are not working on you…"

"Punishment for what, exactly?" he asked through the pain.

She nodded to somebody else behind John and his back was assaulted with several burning lashes in quick succession. He had trouble to keep from screaming again but was quite proud of having succeeded when the onslaught finally stopped.

She scowled at him this time. "I kept Havnek from killing you so far, but if you test my patience for much longer, I will tell him to show no mercy!"

He tried to look for this Havnek guy, but she quickly grabbed his chin while her face moved into his personal space and she brought up a syringe with a transparent liquid in front of his face. "You made this to help Wraith hide among humans in human disguise, HOW?!"

John shook his head. "You're getting this wrong!" He got a slap across the face for it.

"Lies are futile!" she nodded to the one behind them briefly, then grabbed Sheppard's chin and forced his head sideways. "Have a look! Your people did this!"

A red sign on the wall turned transparent and a Wraith drone, without his mask on, stared back at them. "He has already given you up!" Lik´al hissed at him.

The drone was dressed in Balktorn´s clothes and his orange blinking collar had already turned red blinking. Several red digits had already stopped blinking, slowly being joined by others.

"Lik´al!!!" the Wraith drone screamed, running towards the window in a panic and John looked at him in surprise. He had never heard a drone speak. "Stop this, you treac-"

John flinched when the Wraith drone's head suddenly exploded.

The guy behind Sheppard walked into his vision now, still holding tightly onto the whip in his hand. John's blood on it was smearing the floor red as he dragged it along. "He told us about an alliance with people from Atlantis, something about a retrovirus to turn Wraith into humans, something you created for the queen!" the man said.

Lik´al stared at Sheppard and added, "This drug erased their memory, but it was no longer hidden to him once he was no longer subjected to it."

Havnek´s face distorted in disgust. "Just like his true form was no longer hidden!"

"Look," John swallowed, chewing nervously on his bottom lip. Of all things for Balktorn to turn into, he had not expected it to be one of the Hive members turned during their previous escape after their alliance with their queen had gone south. "You really got this backwards…."

The man sneered into John's face. "You hid your queen as a human to protect her as well, to help her lure her food into her traps!"

"No," John shook his head, "we…"

"Enough with your lies!!" The man punched John hard enough to make him spit out some blood. John ran his tongue cautiously over the lines of his teeth, testing for any knocked out ones, but was relieved when he found them all still in their place.

"Okay, little hole in your logic there…" he began, trying to use their own information to make them see reason. "If you're talking about Teyla here, how come _she _didn't turn? She had not been given anything for the past two days either! Ever thought about that?"

"She's your queen!" Havnek spat at him. "I am sure she was given something stronger to last longer than her drone!"

John exhaled a breath of frustration. "The Wraith queen was immune, she never tur-!"

Havnek punched him in the gut before he could finish the sentence and John curled up as much as his restrained position allowed him to.

"You injected these things with a drug, allowing them to hide among their victims and then you just left them all to their fate, on a planet with no gate!"

"No." Sheppard shook his head, taking a deep breath. "There were no humans…"

"Oh there were all right!" Havnek growled. "There were several. But you just didn't give a damn about those human prisoners when you left them alone along with the abandoned Wraith!"

Sheppard shook his head more violently now. "No, you're lying. No humans were …"

"Treated?" Havnek snarled. "That drug caused a lot of headaches until your people ran away to leave us, them alone!"

_Us?_ Sheppard's head shot up at this slip. "No. There were no humans. They were all…"

"Looking human on the outside? Well, some of us were not turned!" Havnek yelled at him, "yet still subjected to the same treatment. At least until some of the _plaque survivors_ regained their true form and got hungry."

Sheppard swallowed hard. That couldn't be. Beckett would have figured something like that wouldn't he?

Lik´al grabbed a fistful of his hair, forcing him to lock eyes with her. "How did you create this drug?" she asked again, "how much more of this do your people have?"

"Noth-" Sheppard coughed. "Nothing."

Lik´al let go of his hair and resumed her grip on his chin, digging her nails into his cheeks painfully enough to actually draw some blood.

"We should just kill him for this!" Havnek demanded.

She shook her head. "No. He would die for everybody without second thought and they would let him, even if they would hate to watch it. I have seen as much about him." She stroked his chin roughly. "No self worth at all, suffering from selfless hero complex!"

Lik´al let go of John's face and pressed another panel. The red sign on the opposite wall turned transparent and John's heart slammed into his chest at the sight.

His team was sitting on the other side, tied to chairs and all wearing these metal neck devices, all three blinking red just as Teyla´s had done in the cell.

Ronon and Teyla seemed to struggle hard to get free, while Rodney's eyes focused straight ahead, the man apparently completely frozen in shock while he stared back at John.

Lik´al´s smug grin was back when John snapped his head back at her and she shushed his attempt to speak by putting her finger over his lips, "but would you sacrifice that of the other human ones just as easily?!"

She stroked his face with mock sympathy. "You have two choices here. Kill the tainted one, or watch them all die!"

Havnek grinned smugly at him, "You have seen what we can do to your shields. You can be sure, if you don't complete the Phasquat to show us that you are trustworthy in getting rid of the Wraith filth, we will go to and destroy Atlantis!"

Lik´al nodded. "Your choice, Sheppard!"

John felt bile rising in his throat as he stared at his friends.

******

to be continued.

*

A/N: *cringes* Sorry.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: I am sorry about the delay. An impromptu Christmas party came up, and let's just say… drinking too much eggnog and red wine is generally not a very good idea… *blush*

***

The puddle jumper shot out of the gate, cloaked and sped over the muddy grounds of the planet Boltera.

Major Lorne studied the HUD.

"Any signs yet?" Carson Beckett asked, leaning in.

"No. None of their transmitters are sending a signal." The major replied.

Carson looked at him in worry. "You don't think -?"

"No doc!" Lorne interrupted the thought. "This Balktorn probably removed them. I guess we have to look for any life signs."

Lt. Stackhouse worked the controls. "Might take a while on a populated planet, Sir!" he studied the data splayed onto their display, showing a bunch of life signs in several different locations.

"Alright. Guess we'll have to check them one by one!" Lorne added.

Lorne brought the Jumper closer to the life signs closest by, but when they reached them, they turned out to be some sort of cattle, some stuck in some sort of open barn, others dining on the grass beneath them, and all of them startling in different directions when the jumper flew over them.

"Well, guess that's not them!" Lorne deadpanned.

"Perhaps it takes them a bit longer to reach the planet." Beckett offered, "They didn't come through the gate, maybe they're not even here yet."

Lorne pressed his mouth shut and sighed. "Yeah, good point, doc!"

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Ronon struggled against his bindings and was actually making headway with them loosening when he noticed that the wall in front of them had suddenly turned transparent, allowing them to see Sheppard. His chest was bare and his arms were secured above his head to the ceiling. His body seemed also to be soaking wet.

"Sheppard!" Ronon growled, angry at the sight.

His friend's back was bleeding from several lengthy wounds across it, one of the guards was standing behind him, a whip in his hand, and a woman with a white dress stood in front of him, long white hair running down her back, and a smug grin on her face as she said something to John.

John stared at them with alarm before his head snapped towards the woman in front of him and they saw him squirm involuntarily under her touch to his face.

"Oh, this is bad, really, really bad!!" McKay whined, staring straight ahead.

Teyla struggled against her own bindings. "We do not have much time!" she urged, looking at Ronon with barely contained fear in her eyes. "These devices will…"

"Blow us up, I know!" Ronon nearly had one hand free as he kept his eyes on Sheppard.

"COME ON!" McKay snapped at his team members, desperately trying to yank his hands free. "We gotta get outta here, or they're gonna kill him, _and us_!!!_"_

Ronon glared at him. "We're trying!" then went back to doing just that.

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Kortal paced in front of a holding cell. Tikana sat on the bench, her head bowed.

"Kortal..." she looked up at him as he approached her.

"I should not even speak to you. Why have you done this?" he asked her, his face contorted with confusion. "You know that these people have destr-"

"We should have never trusted Lik´al," she interrupted him. "I should have known that once you are turned-"

"Turned?" Kortal sighed, "Tikana. Will you stop this? We owe Lik´al a great deal of-"

Tikana rose and glared at him. "We owe her nothing, Kortal! She has betrayed the alliance with Pekoralas!"

He frowned at her. "What do you mean? She has made great progress with the defence contrap-"

"She has done no such thing!" Tikana moved closer to him, locking eyes with his in worry. "Kortal, please. You must stop her!"

"Why would I do that? These new Lantians have destroyed Pekoralas´ only hope for surv-"

"No Kortal!" she shook her head. "They have probably done the exact opposite."

Kortal moved closer, studying her with raised eyebrows. "What do you mean? I saw the device working!"

Tikana sighed. "But did you ever see it working in the supposed way?"

"It could not be finished, "Kortal reminded her. "Havnek never got to complete the-"

Tikana leaned forward. "And that might have been a very good thing."

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"Sir, I'm picking up a ship!" Stackhouse pointed at the HUD and a few seconds later, they could see a large ship coming within sight a considerate distance away, the still tiny black dot hovering over the ocean of the planet.

Lorne ran a scan of it with the jumper's LSD. "There are about a dozen life signs on board, let's hope Colonel Sheppard's team is among them!"

The ship descended towards a platform and landed.

Lorne leaned back to face the three teams of marines sitting in the back of the jumper. "Gear up, guys! We might have found them!"

"Yes, Sir!" they confirmed as one, jumping to their feet.

"E.T.A. 20 minutes, Sir!" Stackhouse informed him.

Lorne urged their cloaked jumper to follow as fast as it could.

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The cold John felt before was nothing compared to how he felt now. How the hell was he supposed to get his team out of this one? His shoulders slumped, the restraints on his wrists cut into the skin and his left shoulder felt ready to pop from its socket, his injured leg now completely refusing to give even the slightest support anymore. Could they really have made such a horrible mistake? They had been sure that the Hives were only populated by Wraith, were they too quick with the assumption that the drug had simply worked too well to be true?

"Last chance, John Sheppard," Lik´al trailed her nail over the side of his face. "Vow to kill the filth yourself and I promise, we will help you through the cleansing ritual afterwards. " She stroked his face in mock affection and he flinched in disgust. "Free yourself of her poison." She continued to smile smugly at him. "But if you keep insisting on protecting your queen, I will not view you as worth the trouble to keep you alive after all!"

"The same could be said about you!" Another voice said, and John's head snapped up at the

interruption. The guard Kortal pointed a gun at Havnek, who was still standing next to John. "Drop it!" he told him.

"Kortal!" Havnek looked surprised, but dropped the whip. "What are you doing?"

"Stopping you from making a big mistake!" Kortal answered, nodding to somebody behind him. "Come in!"

Lik´al narrowed her eyes when she spotted Tikana entering. "What is this traitor doing outside the prison cell?!"

Her former assistant straightened with a raised chin. "The only traitor here is you, Lik´al!"

"And yet, you are the one who took a weapon to me!" Lik´al walked towards her, but Kortal pointed a blaster at her. "She was protecting the guilty ones and you let her free, Kortal?!"

"Stay where you are!" he warned her, "Is it true?" he demanded.

Lik´al tilted her head. "Of course it is true. His kind-" she motioned to Sheppard, "has subjected us to horrors you could not even imagine, it is our right-"

"I don't mean his crime. I mean yours!" Kortal snapped at Lik´al now, ignoring Sheppard. "The Pekoralas shield never truly failed, did it? You used them because you wanted revenge-"

"I wanted justice for what has been done!" Lik´al screamed and grabbed a fistful of John's hair again, causing him to hiss through gritted teeth. "His people deserve to suffer as I have done!"

Sheppard stared at her. She was lying, he was sure of it now. "You couldn't have been there…! " He insisted. "There were no females, no human-"

Lik´al slapped him hard enough to cause his surroundings starting to tilt around him.

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"UNCHEDULED OFF-WORLD ACTIVATION!"

Chuck's voice bellowed again, and Elizabeth looked at the gate impatiently.

"IDC?" she asked, just as the code appeared on the screen in front of the gate tech.

"It's Kontan´s code!" Chuck told her.

"Drop the shield!" she said, walking towards the gate just as the council of Pekoralas stepped through. She nodded at her in greeting. "Councillor, welcome to Atlantis!"

"Thank you, Dr. Weir." Kontan smiled at her, "I am glad you agreed to meet on your grounds. Ours are no longer safe, I am afraid." She offered an apologetic smile and cleared her throat. "May we speak somewhere more private?"

"Of course. In my office." Elizabeth waved Kontan towards it and they ascended the stairs as the gate shut down again.

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"This is not justice, Lik´al!" Tikana yelled. "You left the people on Pekoralas defenceless with your actions!"

John had trouble following the discussion now, trying very hard not to lose consciousness. "No humans, no women…" he whispered, more to himself than to them now.

"Lik´al!" Havnek yelled suddenly, staring through the observation window. "One of them is getting free!"

Lik´al flipped around to see the big man with the dreadlocks ripping at his bindings, one hand nearly popping free.

"ACTIVATE IT!" she yelled, but Havnek was shot before he could reach the console, and his body was thrown against the window by the impact, causing it to shatter into pieces.

John flinched and looked at Kortal in surprise but the guard backed away from somebody else. Another well aimed shot hit the controls on the console, sending sparks of fire through the room and forcing John to squeeze his eyes shut from the brightness as the device flashed and slowly died.

"Sorry about that, Sir!" A familiar voice said, and John opened his eyes slowly to see if he was hallucinating.

Major Lorne stood in front of him, his P-90 pointed at Lik´al, who glared daggers at his second in command, but didn't dare to move under the threat of his firepower. About a dozen marines filed into the room and gave Lorne cover, making sure nobody could sneak up behind them.

Tikana stood near the door and stared at the new arrivals with confusion as two marines grabbed the unconscious form of Havnek from the glass spattered floor and secured his arms behind his back.

Relief started to wash over John. "Nice timing, Major!"

"You're welcome!" the Major grinned briefly, but dropped the smile to look at John's battered body with concern. "Sorry it wasn't sooner!" he still held his P-90 trained on Lik´al while he waved to two of the marines. "Get him down from there, and make sure the others are okay!"

They nodded and two of them moved towards their CO, cutting with their knives through the rope that held him secured to the ceiling. Another four men moved towards the rest of Sheppard's team, helping them out of their restraints.

"How did you find us?!" Sheppard finally asked, still dumbfounded at the sudden presence of the cavalry.

"Got a tip from the people on Pekoralas." the Major replied. "They gave us the gate address!"

"What gate address? Are we, we're on a … aren't we still…" Sheppard had trouble focussing, his injuries finally taking their toll.

"ARE YOU NUTS?!"

McKay's high pitched voice suddenly assaulted his ears, as the scientist was helped to his feet and stumbled over the glass shards. "You could have killed us! That's so typical for you stupid brush heads, shoot everything to hell, how could you know if that thing wasn't connected to us in a self destructing way, our heads could have exploded!!"

"Looks like we were too late after all!" Lorne deadpanned and flashed an apologetic grin towards his CO. John simply smirked and decided to let it slide.

"But they did not, Rodney!" Teyla tried to reason with him, smiling over at them and Sheppard smirked at her before returning his attention to his second in command.

"What gate address?" John repeated. "Aren't we still on a ship?!"

"No, Sir!" Lorne answered. "The owner of the device destroyed on Pekoralas took you to his own home planet, to Boltera. Kontan no longer felt bound to the silence about his contact location once that happened. They gave us the gate address but it took us a while to locate you. Your transmitters aren't working, so we had to scan for life signs."

"Huh. "Sheppard simply said, fighting the urge to blank out. "So, how about we-"

Lik´al suddenly shrieked and flung herself at him, knocking them both to the floor while a shot bellowed and John couldn't stop a yelp of pain escaping when his injured back and leg made hard contact with the hard surface. His vision was greying but he saw the blurred shape of somebody kicking Lik´al´s now dead body off him. Somebody else snatched a 9mm from her clutching hand.

"Sorry Sir!" he heard one of the marines say, the voice sounding odd, as if his own ears were plucked under water. "She slipped out of my grip for a second." The young marine's face seemed both shocked and flushed red with embarrassment.

"Sheppard?" Ronon came out from nowhere, crouching next to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you okay, man?"

"John?" Teyla looked at him in concern, crouching on his other side and putting a hand onto his forehead. She cupped his chin when he closed his eyes again. "John, take this," she held a bottle of water to his mouth, nudging it against his lips and trying to get him to drink until he finally relented and took a sip. She put a hand on his shoulder while he drank. "You will be fine!"

John closed and opened his eyes in an attempt to get rid of the film forming on them, nodding slowly. Teyla put her leg under his head to cushion it, but John's body convulsed in an attempt to fight the sudden urge to throw up. He tried to get away from Teyla, panicked he'd mess her clothes up but unable to sit up.

"Dr. Beckett?" someone called, and John wasn't sure if it was Teyla or somebody else's voice anymore when his ears were assaulted by loud ringing and water rushing noises.

"Colonel, let me help you, come on John!"

Beckett´s blurred features showed up over John's face just as he opened his eyes again, and the doctor was quick enough to roll him onto his side where John curled up and expelled the little water he had swallowed before he started to dry heave; for the first time glad he hadn't eaten anything in several days to actually bring up that much.

"Oh bloody hell!" the Scottish doctor said, then shouted at his medical team. "Get him on a stretcher!"

"Urgh, that's just disgusting." Rodney said, but looked at John with more sympathy than actual annoyance.

There were a million things John wanted to say, anything from thanks to great timing to the rescuers, or something to get Rodney to shut up, but instead, he just passed out.

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"Your city is remarkable." Kontan commented, looking around in awe as they walked towards Elizabeth's office and Weir smiled at that. "Thank you. I wish you could have seen it under better circumstances!"

"I agree, Dr. Weir. I am very sorry about what happened." Kontan´s features turned regretful as she sat down in the chair in front of Elizabeth's desk.

Weir sat down into her own chair and cleared her throat. "I think we are the ones who need to apologize, but I am sure that Colonel Sheppard had no intention of causing any harm when this device-"

Kontan shook her head, "he may have done us a great service."

Elizabeth stared at her in surprise. "I did not expect to hear this," she admitted.

Kontan hesitated, apparently struggling with the decision to share more. "As you already know, our shield has been malfunctioning for a while. But none of us knew the true reason behind it. We had suspected some of the Ancestor devices to interfere with it."

Elizabeth nodded. "That is why Dr. McKay had been allowed to look into them."

"Yes," Kontan confirmed with a nod, "but he could not find – "

"Well, he did not have much time-, "

Kontan took a deep breath. "He could not find it, because our shield had never been failing to begin with."

Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow and was about to ask for further details, when Amelia's announcement of another off-world activation cut into her words.

She gave Kontan an apologetic smile, "I am sorry, Councillor – "

The other woman nodded in approval and rose to her feet along with Elizabeth, rushing making their way back to the gate room.

"It's Major Lorne's code, Ma´am!" Amelia said once Elizabeth had reached her. "They found Colonel Sheppard's team." She added with a smile.

"Drop the shield!" she watched the puddle jumper emerging through the gate, and saw Ronon and McKay through the front window.

Major Lorne smiled in greeting. "Dr. Weir! The colonel and Teyla are injured but Dr. Beckett is with them. And we brought some more guests; you might want to clear out some space in the brig!"

"Understood! Well done, Major!" Elizabeth felt a large rock falling from her heart as the jumper ascended into the jumper bay and Kontan shared a relieved smile with her

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A beeping sound irritated his ear and John felt something solid and cold pressed into it, but it was removed before he could swat it away. A nurse appeared in front of him, and gave him a friendly smile. "I am sorry to disturb you. I'll be as quick as I can!"

He winced at the brightness of a penlight assaulting his eyes and John noticed only now, that he had been laying flat on his belly, so he tried to get himself in a sitting position.

"No Colonel Sheppard, you must stay put!" the nurse protested, just as a burning sensation shot through John's lacerated back. Another pain throbbed through his leg and he dropped down onto the mattress again with a hiss. It hurt less that way, so maybe staying put wasn't such a bad idea after all.

The woman shook her head with mild annoyance."It is way too early for that!"

The blanket was removed down to Sheppard's waist, and the knot around his neck holding the pathetic excuse for hospital wear was opened, exposing the skin on his back and he shivered when the colder air struck him.

He blinked his eyes clear of the film clouding his sight, and recognized the features of a female nurse, dressed in the Atlantis infirmary uniform, standing next to his bed just as she was placing a stethoscope into her ears.

"I am sorry, this will be a little cold," she said, and a small, very cold, round object was gently pressed to his injured back, making him flinch with the contact despite the warning, even though the nurse did her best to avoid the lacerated parts of his skin.

"Can you roll a little onto your side?" she requested when she was done checking his lungs.

John felt a little pressure to his shoulder, encouraging him to move and John nodded slowly before he rolled over as best he could.

The stethoscope was placed onto his chest. The nurse kept listening to his heart for a short moment, and then allowed him to roll back onto his stomach. She put the gown back into place and covered him with the blanket before she moved to write her results on his chart. He fought a sudden urge to cough and she held a mug with water to his mouth, which he took gratefully. After what he deemed way too early, the nurse took the drink away from him but the cup was out of reach before he could protest.

"We are done for now, you should go back to sleep." The nurse told him, but he shook his head.

She injected something into a vial connected to the back of his hand and the pain soon ebbed away to a more bearable level. He wanted to ask about his team, but whatever the drug was, it was too strong to fight and he went back into darkness.

***

to be continued.


	8. Chapter 8

The wronged one - chapter 8

***

John lifted his head to take in his surroundings when the nurse next appeared to take his vitals. "My team!?" he asked her. He recognized the Atlantis infirmary, but where were his friends?

"We are here, John!" Teyla´s voice sounded from nearby, and he lifted his head in the other direction, just as the nurse removed the privacy curtain between them.

"Just a few minutes though. I will be over there in the office, if you need me." The nurse turned around, leaving them alone.

Teyla was seated upright in a bed next to his own, her right arm wrapped in a fresh bandage and she was dressed in white scrubs. He spotted Ronon sitting in a chair next to her bed with his head lolled onto his shoulder, apparently fast asleep. The Satedan suddenly flinched in his sleep, his right leg kicked at something only he could see and he turned to his side with a slight snore.

"He did not want to leave until he was sure that we are both okay." Teyla said, looking at their sleeping friend, then returned her gaze to John, "but I guess he could no longer fight his own exhaustion. How are you feeling?"

John smirked. "Guess he's kicking some ass for us right now!" He looked at Teyla with concern, his gaze fixed on the bandage on her arm. "Are you okay?"

"I am well enough." Teyla assured him. "Are you feeling better?" she asked again.

Sheppard didn't like the troubled look on her face at all and avoided her gaze by staring out the windows. The sky was purple with the rising sun, while a slight moonlight was still reflected over the ocean waves.

"How long was I out?" he finally asked.

"Two days since Major Lorne found us."

He furrowed his brows. "I slept for two days?" _Well, that wasn't so bad, was it?_

"No, you were in and out, but Dr. Beckett had you sedated for most of it." Teyla reassured him.

"Where's Rodney?" John scanned the room but there was no sign of McKay yet.

"He's in a meeting with Dr. Weir but will be back soon." Teyla said.

John nodded, but had to close his eyes against the dizziness it caused.

"Perhaps you should rest now." Teyla suggested.

John wanted to protest but his eyes were already drooping shut again.

****

Major Lorne and Elizabeth entered the brig, followed closely by Rodney and Kontan. An infirmary bed had been moved into the holding cell, and Havnek, his wrists secured to the bed railings, stared at them with cold eyes.

"Has he said anything?" Elizabeth asked the marine standing guard.

"No Ma´am!" the marine shook his head.

"Havnek," Kontan addressed the man in the bed, "how could you betray our trust like this?"

Havnek glared at the woman, "these people are working with the Wraith, and you are mad with our actions?"

McKay scowled. "Will you stop with that crap?" he snapped.

Kontan straightened. "From what Tikana and Kortal told me, it would seem that you and Lik´al had been the ones collaborating with the Wraith. This contractor you brought to us, Balktorn, he was-"

"None of us knew about that!" Havnek protested. "These people," he spat in Rodney's direction, "were responsible!"

Rodney was about to snap again, but Elizabeth stepped forward, staring the man down, "excuse me?!"

Havnek glared at her, "Balktorn was given a drug, by your people! It allowed him to resume human form, fooling the victims within his grasps. YOU created this drug!" he threw his head back into the pillows, "we had no idea about who we were, but all of a sudden, Wraith turned up everywhere, humans were turning into them around us on a planet where we could not even find a gate to escape."

Lorne exchanged a worried glance with Elizabeth and McKay went pale.

***

"John?"

He heard a rustle of clothes and looked up. Teyla stood next to his bed and the room was bright with sunlight.

He must have fallen asleep again. "Sorry, did I ... I didn't snore, did I?!"

She smiled at him. "No," but her smile faded and her face was now showing a level of guilt he didn't want to see there. "I am sorry."

"What for?"

"What they put you through…this was my fault."

He shook his head, closing his eyes to wait another wave of dizziness out, but forced them back open after a brief moment. "No, it wasn't!"

She shook her head this time as well. "If I had not touched the device, it would have never broken…."

John held her gaze. "I was the one who threw it, remember?!"

"But it would have destructed itself after I .."

John tried to protest again but coughed instead, and Ronon jerked awake, looking around with the same confusion John had felt earlier until he focused on John.

"Hey Sheppard, you're up!" Ronon walked closer to him, and offered the cup of water now standing on the table next to John's bed to his friend, "How are you?"

"Been better", John admitted with a pain filled grimace and took a sip of water.

"You should get some rest." Teyla suggested, and slipped back under her own covers.

Ronon squeezed his shoulder and added with a grin, "Maybe she's right. You're looking tired!"

John shook his head, but his eyes dropped shut against his will.

***

"Is he telling the truth?" Kontan asked, her face hardening.

Elizabeth swallowed. "We-"

"You never thought twice about the human prisoners on that planet." Havnek spat with another accusing glare, "Lik´al and I …"

"That's not possible!" McKay insisted and looked at Elizabeth, "even if there is a chance for that, which I doubt, there were no females except the queen and she never-"

Havnek sneered. "See? They don't even try to deny this!"

Kontan looked at him for a moment, took a deep breath and turned to Elizabeth again. "Is he telling the truth about this drug?" she asked again.

Elizabeth cleared her throat, "we thought it would-"

"-help their queen." Havnek interrupted. "They did it for her!"

Kontan stared at him, then at Elizabeth with a questioning glare. Elizabeth took a deep breath, and Lorne pressed his mouth shut.

"And you should not pretend so innocent either, Councillor!" Kontan straightened when Havnek threw another accusing glare in her direction. "None of this would have happened if you had allowed Lik´al to live among your own despite her lineage!"

Lorne, McKay and Elizabeth looked at Kontan with the same questioning look she had given them earlier.

Kontan stepped closer to the wall of the brig. "Havnek, whatever the reason behind our agreement with Lik´al, you had no right to bring our defences down. You chose to do this on your own will, and I will not-"

"Own will?" Havnek snapped. "Do you have any idea what the Wraith do to you if you do not cooperate? You cannot imagine the pain behind that!"

"Excuse me, but who is this Lik´al?" Elizabeth finally asked.

Kontan sighed. "She was one of our researchers. She was working on methods to bring down Wraith defences, but she had to adjust the shield breaking device to our own shield in order to record the needed data and develop reverse programming." She turned to face Elizabeth, "as I have told you, our shield had apparently been malfunctioning."

Elizabeth nodded. "But you said the shield had never truly failed."

"Oh but it did fail!" Rodney protested, "We could read the power fluctuations when we started the diagn-"

"No," Kontan shook her head, "the device, the one that Colonel Sheppard inadvertently destroyed, had been tested against Ancestor shields. It caused temporary disablement for several days after every time it was used."

"Sorry, but how did this Lik´al get this to you if she wasn't allowed among your people?" Lorne asked with eyebrows furrowed.

Kontan sighed. "I must admit, we have made a terrible mistake."

Havnek snorted, just as Ronon entered the brig as well and gave the Bolteran a hateful glare.

***

"Ah good, you're awake!" McKay walked into the infirmary, and flopped himself down onto the chair next to Sheppard's bed, typing in several command codes in record speed.

"Nice to see you too, Rodney!" Sheppard scowled at his friend, just as Elizabeth entered the infirmary as well.

"How are you two doing?" she asked with concern, standing between their beds.

"I am fine, Elizabeth," Teyla said with a faint smile, "though ashamed."

"Teyla - it's not your fault!" John told her again and glared at Rodney. "McKay, would you tell her there was no way for us to know about this!"

Before Elizabeth had a chance to ask for further details, Carson came out of his office, and sighed. "This place is more crowded than a train station, I just had to chase Ronon out…"

"We will keep it short." Elizabeth promised with a nod.

With another sigh, Carson nodded back to her, "Aye, alright then, but no more than a few minutes!"

Rodney shut his laptop and John winced at the sound. Maybe some of the drugs they had him on had heightened his hearing, because there was no way that little motion could ever be that loud.

"Well, "Rodney finally relented, "according to our friends Tikana and Kortal, it appears that our friend Balktorn was a Wraith."

"Yeah I know that." John said, and off their looks, added, "I saw him through one of their observation windows, shortly before he exploded. They showed me what happens to our _masters_ in their hands."

"Oh," McKay was a little taken aback by that news, but continued, "Well, our friends from Pekoralas have located and interrogated this lab assistant, the one who gave Lorne the address where to find us? And our friends from the ship, Tikana and Havnek, have filled in the rest." he grimaced, "though Havnek took some of Ronon´s excellent skills in convincing him to tell the truth! Anyway, turns out the device they had on Pekoralas was never intended to work against Wraith defences at all. It was designed to work the same way the one they had used on you did." He looked at Teyla, "against Ancient technology and shields! But on a much larger scale, say, to take out an entire city's defence system."

John swallowed. "Why?"

Elizabeth answered before McKay could this time, "Lik´al was a worshipper, in alliance with the Wraith."

John furrowed his brow. "But she, they both, made it pretty clear to me that they hate that kind of stuff. Why would they kill a Wraith when they worship them?"

Teyla nodded. "I agree, that makes no sense!"

"Long story, "McKay sighed. "Lik´al was originally from Pekoralas. She had the ability to sense and establishing a mental connection to the Wraith," he locked eyes with Teyla, "like you."

Teyla swallowed. "She was of my lineage?"

John frowned. "You said that many of those experimented upon by this Wraith had been banned from their original world after they had been taken and returned?"

Teyla nodded. "Yes."

"Then she must have been a descendent from one of those as well." Carson offered needlessly.

"She had been working on a way to strike back against the Wraith a couple years ago," Elizabeth said, "shortly before we were under their Siege. She had been close to it, when a hive ship showed up during one of the times when the Pekoralas shield had been temporarily disabled because of her experiments. Many of their people were taken. Kontan and Motalko thought she had been used by the Wraith to get a message when to strike and she was banned from their planet as a security risk. She relocated to Boltera to continue with her efforts."

"Boltera has a death sentence for Wraith worshippers, and anyone showing signs of any connection with them," John said, looking at Teyla and grimacing, "wouldn't they have hated her the same way she had shown Teyla?"

Elizabeth sat down in a chair before she continued, "Probably would have, but Boltera was culled soon after Pekoralas. Havnek and Lik´al had been working together on the device, when they were taken prisoner during the culling. The Wraith tortured them until they offered to work for them in exchange for their lives, giving up their secret with the half finished device still working against Ancient technology instead of Wraith, but their completed devices didn't take out an entire city's shield, only small ones."

"I do not understand. If they were in alliance with the Wraith, why did they kill the drone?" Teyla asked.

"They didn't think highly of a drone, much less one who could blow their cover at any time to the rest of their people once they had been returned to them. The manner of his extermination simply fitted their game of deception." McKay paced around the room when he continued, "The queen of the hive that Lik´al and Havnek had been on, culled some apparent human victims from the planet we left them on after our attempt to destroy the experiment had failed."

Elizabeth took a deep breath. "But they started to regain their Wraith forms as well as their memory when the drugs were no longer injected and passed on the knowledge of who did this to them, Atlantis. According to Havnek, the queen decided to take advantage of the knowledge, and had ordered Lik´al to get one of the drones back on his _medication_."

"Why?" John asked again, "why would they do that?"

"After our, admittedly, disastrous attempt to turn a large number of Wraith into humans, they learned that Atlantis wasn't destroyed after all and used their human worshippers to make use of the Bolteran alliance with Pekoralas as a means to get to us in the end. Take out our shields and make it to Earth." Elizabeth sighed.

John frowned. "But that still doesn't explain why Pekoralas would join forces with some worshippers on a hive-"

"What better way to have a convincing salesman, than have him believe in the cause himself in the same way he's selling his story? They probably never told him the truth of his own origins." Elizabeth added. "Pekoralas is facing another hive approaching within the next three weeks. They were desperate enough to take a chance on Lik´al´s promise."

"Let me guess, that's the same hive that Lik´al belonged to?" John asked.

Rodney nodded and continued. "Pekoralas´ shield is the same as ours, but Lik´al had no way of adjusting the destructive device enough to bring down a fully powered shield long enough without access to one. She needed a way to regain access, and the drone was the middle man to get there." Rodney sighed, "He was the only one who, once adjusted to the drug, would not have been able to show signs of deceit under scrutiny and he was made to believe the story he was fed. That he truly had created a way to bring down Wraith."

John bit his lip, "talk about backstabbing."

"They needed to test their experiment." Elizabeth sat down with a frown. "But when we showed up, the assistant who was supposed to complete the larger version of the shield disabler freaked out before he could build it into the Pekoralas defence system and tried to run, thinking we had figured out their master plan. It was still connected with the device you guys destroyed."

McKay snorted. "But it gets better! This supposed key device was rigged with a sensor sending a signal once somebody with a strong gene –"

"Wraith gene…" Teyla said, looking at them, "when I touched it…"

"No, it was actually the two of us, "Rodney pointed at John and himself, "who caused it to activate. It was never programmed to react to the Wraith gene with a self destruct. It was programmed to react to the ATA gene. It sent a signal to Lik´al and Havnek, telling them, that an _Ancient_ or well, the new wave of Atlantians – us – have arrived at their _holy grail_ of Ancient technology. It had been sitting there since they got wind of Pekoralas being in contact with us. "

"I do not understand, "Teyla looked at Rodney and her eyebrow rose. "Balktorn told us it was deactivated to make it safe to work on for anyone with the Ancestor code, the ATA gene…"

"Well, that was part of the cover story!" Rodney explained, "With basically nobody around to actually handle it, the Pekoralas inhabitants had no way of knowing anything wrong with the tale. Picking us up was Lik´al´s Plan B to make it to Atlantis."

Elizabeth tilted her head, "The irony in that being that Balktorn was actually in the same room with the second council of Pekoralas while he spoke to me, he could have easily demanded the gate address from them, even used their code to ensure their people to pass through the shield for an invasion, but didn't think of doing so because at the time, he had no idea what the actual goal of _his_ people was. He was still convinced, that the device that got destroyed was meant to bring down the Wraith."

John smirked at that. "Small mercies."

She smirked back while Rodney looked at John, "So, when you smashed the thing, you actually took out one of two Ancient shield breakers, still in development, and they were about to build larger versions of those into Wraith hives once completed."

"So," John let his head drop back down onto the pillow. "Technically, we saved a lot of asses with our playing around, huh?!"

Teyla smiled at him, then locked eyes with Rodney again. "What about the second one, the one that Balktorn had used on me, is it still operational?"

"The experience with Balktorn has convinced the Bolterans to destroy it." Elizabeth answered instead, "It is too dangerous to fall into Wraith hands again."

Sheppard nodded, "But why did they want me to kill Teyla?!"

Elizabeth sighed and sat down into the chair again, "Probably because of her link to the Wraith, for being able to warn people –us- about their approach, or maybe because their heroes have a score to settle with us. We fooled them into thinking that we destroyed Atlantis."

John grimaced, "Right, not ones to let that slide, huh?"

Teyla smiled, but her face soon returned to sombre. "So what happens to Tikana and Kortal now…?"

"The Bolterans have cleared Tikana of all suspicion of treason. She will not have to face any charges and has already returned to them."

"And what about Havnek?" John asked, "he said he had been subjected to our drugs as well, I take it that he was he lying?"

McKay exchanged a look with Elizabeth, and she sighed. "Well, not sure about this. He claims the Wraith on board the hive where he and Lik´al had been held prisoner used it on them to see what it would do. The other apparently human victims started to revert back into Wraith and it made them curious enough to experiment with the drug."

Teyla and John exchanged a look, not sure what to say about this.

John cleared his throat. "So, what will happen to him now? I doubt his people want him back after what he has done."

Elizabeth grimaced. "No. Even under the circumstances, he has still betrayed their code and will most likely be executed for that."

"Well, I'm –" John didn't know what to say about this, or how to feel anymore.

"Don't!" Elizabeth interrupted him, "he had me a choice and his own people will take care of it. However, there is another small problem..." Elizabeth said, chewing her bottom lip.

"Yeah?" John asked when she wasn't forthcoming any further.

"The Bolterans and the people on Pekoralas demand that we destroy all remains of the drug that led to Balktorn´s transformation." She finally said.

Carson looked to the floor with an abashed sigh, "Not that I blame them. If I had known – "

"We all thought it would be a good idea, doc!" John offered, but suddenly remembered something else. "This hive you mentioned, the one headed towards Pekoralas, they still know that Atlantis wasn't destroyed though. What are we-"

Elizabeth smiled at him, "With the shield damaging device out of the way, the Pekoralas people were able to re-establish their protection. The Daedalus will be back in two weeks time and we have promised Kontan and her people to help them get rid of the threat in order to preserve our alliance."

John nodded. "Fair enough. Let's hope this doesn't go south again."

Ronon entered, and sat down onto John's bed, a trail of food in his hands, "Did I miss anything?"

John looked down at the trail and scowled. "Yeah, how about instead of pudding, you bring me some decent clothes to wear!" He stared down at his hospital gown with disgust.

Ronon smirked at Teyla at that. "Sounds like he's better!"

John glared at his friend, "Well, if you want to call it that…"

"It is a gown, John," Teyla lectured him with a sympathetic smile, "and in your condition, probably a better option than forcing yourself into scrubs for a while!"

He lifted his head towards her, attempting a smirk. "You trying to make me feel better, or worse?"

She tilted her head in sympathy, "I am sure you can convince Dr. Beckett to allow you something else to wear soon enough."

At that, Carson smiled as well, "Well, perhaps in time, but right now, I would like ya all to allow my patients some rest, please."

Ronon put a hand on John's shoulder, "Yeah, you gonna need it for our morning run!"

John looked up and saw the big guy grinning down at him, "Sure, bright and early, just gimme a few hours…!"

"And a couple of weeks...!" Carson demanded, and with a warning glare to Ronon, added, "I sure hope you know he's not up for that for a while yet, son!"

Ronon shrugged at the doc, "I was kidding."

"I hope you were!" Carson said, and gave Ronon another glare, "and now, please let me make sure he gets at least back on his feet before you or Teyla take him apart again!"

"Hey, I can hold my own!" John protested.

Teyla smirked at him. "I am sure you will do fine during our next sparring!" She cradled her bandaged arm visible enough for him to make her point.

"Thanks!" John pouted, "And I thought Elizabeth's were the worst bedside manners here."

Elizabeth quirked an eyebrow, but pressed her mouth shut with a smirk when he threw her a lopsided grin.

Teyla threw her head back with a laugh and Ronon gave John a pat on the shoulder. "Thought you said you hate being fussed over?!"

"I do, but cut me some slack here, will ya?!" John grumbled.

Ronon jumped back onto his feet and with a nod to John and Teyla, promised, "We'll be back later!"

"There will be no running or sparring until I say so!" Carson warned.

Ronon shrugged again, "I meant with dinner!"

Elizabeth turned to leave as well. "Well, get better, John. You too, Teyla."

Teyla smiled at her as their leader left the infirmary.

Ronon grabbed McKay by his shirt collar on his way out. "Come one McKay, time for your first sparring lesson!"

McKay groaned at that and Teyla exchanged a grin with John while the scientist was dragged away, his complaints still audible even after they were long out of sight.

Carson looked at the now empty doorframe and grimaced, "well, looks like you'll get some company soon enough!" then he motioned to the privacy curtain between John and Teyla, "Sorry lass, but I'll have to close this for a moment!"

"Of course," she nodded, and Carson pulled the curtain closed.

"Well, let's have a look at your back and leg then, son!"

John braced himself for another wave of being prodded and poked in all the wrong places. At least they were all safely home now and he focused on the new DVDs that had arrived with the last Daedalus stint. With Teyla and himself in no fit state for active duty for a while now, at least they would have plenty of time to get up to date on the latest Earth movies.

He smiled at that, even through the pain of Carson's administrations.

****

****

The End

A/N: Well, we have finally reached the conclusion. I hope all those still keeping up with the story enjoyed it, and let me know what you think. Big thanks again to all those who have left some feedback, much appreciated :-)


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